








































































































































































































CojpglitN 0 . 


CQPXKIGUT DiJ»OSffi 











THE TEACHING WORK 
OF THE CHURCH 


THE COMMITTEE ON THE WAR 
AND THE RELIGIOUS OUTLOOK 

(Appointed by the Federal Council of the 
Churches of Christ in America) 


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ASSOCIATION PRESS 

New York: 347 Madison Avenue 

1923 



Copyright, 1923, 

The International Committee of 
Young Men’s Christian Associations 

Printed in the United States of America 



JAW 28 *24 

©C1A7G5824 




I 





EDITORIAL PREFACE 



“The Teaching Work of the Church” is the final 
volume in a series of five reports issued by the Committee 
on the War and the Religious Outlook, an interdenomina¬ 
tional group appointed in 1918, by the joint action of the 
Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America 
and the General War Time Commission of the Churches, 
“to consider the state of religion as revealed or affected 
by the war, with special reference to the duty and oppor¬ 
tunity of the Churches.” 

The task which the Committee at first set for itself did 
not include any special discussion of the educational work 
of the Church. At every turn, however, it has proved 
impossible to avoid it. 

The Committee’s first study, the inquiry into “Religion 
among American Men: As Revealed by a Study of Con¬ 
ditions in the Army,” based on the testimony of those 
who had been most intimately in touch with that great 
cross-section of American young manhood represented by 
our National Army, revealed beyond the shadow of a 
doubt that the Church, as a teacher, has seriously failed 
in developing even among its members a clear conception 
of the meaning of Christianity for human life. When, 
in “The Missionary Outlook in the Light of the War,” the 
Committee considered the Church’s missionary responsi¬ 
bility, the chief difficulty was found to be that those 
who comprise the average membership of the Church do 
not yet really understand the universal character of the 

Christian Gospel and its profound meaning for our inter- 

• • • 

111 


IV 


EDITORIAL PREFACE 


national life. To develop the needed consciousness of the 
unity of mankind and of a world-wide task was seen to 
require educational processes efficient enough to change 
the point of view of great masses of men. 

No less inevitable was the same conclusion when, in 
“The Church and Industrial Reconstruction,” our present 
economic and industrial life was examined in the light 
of the Christian ideal for society. To modify our existing 
social order—which accepts self-interest as the only mo¬ 
tive strong enough to afford a foundation for our indus¬ 
trial life, which takes ruthless competition as the principle 
of economic organization, which measures success by the 
accumulation of material wealth and the exercise of power 
over the lives of others—until we have a society in which 
human values have first consideration and every person¬ 
ality has opportunity for full development, in which 
brotherhood is the fundamental relationship of men, 
and love the controlling motive, in which service to the 
common good is the test of all success, this, again, 
is a prodigious task which can be achieved only by 
thorough and persistent educational effort. 

Even when studying the organization of the Church 
itself, in “Christian Unity: Its Principles and Possibili¬ 
ties,” the educational issue was inescapable. Convinced 
that the Churches cannot hope to lead warring nations or 
conflicting classes into fraternal cooperation unless they 
themselves, which proclaim the gospel of unity, can em¬ 
body it in their own relationships to each other, the 
Committee nevertheless found that this requires the train¬ 
ing of Church members in new habits of thought, an 
enlarged understanding of their underlying unity of spirit 
and purpose, and a deepening appreciation of what the 
unity of the Church could mean in achieving the unity of 
mankind. The more the Committee have considered any 


EDITORIAL PREFACE 


v 


of these problems, the more compellingly have they been 
led to study the educational work of the Church. Hence 
the present volume, appearing two years after the other 
four reports. 

The scope and character of this volume are the result 
of many group conferences. The cooperation of several 
persons was then secured in making the first draft of the 
manuscript. Chapters I and II were drafted by Professor 
Luther A. Weigle, of Yale Divinity School; Chapters III, 
IV, VII, and IX by Rev. Benjamin S. Winchester, of the 
International Sunday School Lesson Committee; Chapters 
V and XII by Professor William Adams Brown, of the 
Union Theological Seminary; Chapter VI by Rev. Samuel 
McCrea Cavert, of the Federal Council of the Churches; 
Chapter VIII by Rev. Erwin L. Shaver of the Congre¬ 
gational Education Society; Chapters X and XI by Dr. 
Robert L. Kelly, of the Council of Church Boards of 
Education. 

The Conference on Correlation of Programs of Re¬ 
ligious Education, held at Forest Hills, L. I., in the spring 
of 1923, has given most valuable counsel and criticism. 
To nearly a score of leaders in religious education, who 
have read the manuscript, the Committee is indebted for 
helpful suggestions. 

In order to secure unity in structure, development, and 
style, the Secretary of the Committee has been given full 
responsibility for revision and editing. 

Samuel McCrea Cavert, Secretary . 


October 1, 1923. 


VI 


EDITORIAL PREFACE 


Committee on the War and the Religious Outlook 


Mrs. Fred S. Bennett 
Professor William Adams 
Brown 

Miss Mabel Cratty 
Mr. George W. Coleman 
Pres. W. H. P. Faunce 
Prof. Harry Emerson Fosdick 
Rev. Charles W. Gilkey 
Mr. Frederick Harris 
Prof. W. E. Hocking 
Rev. Samuel G. Inman 
Prof. Charles M. Jacobs 
Pres. Henry Churchill King 
Bishop Walter R. Lambuth 
(deceased) 

Bishop Francis J. McConnell 


Rev. Charles S. Macfarland 
Pres. William Douglas Mac¬ 
kenzie 

Dean Shailer Mathews 
Dr. John R. Mott 
Rev. Frank Mason North 
Dr. E. C. Richardson 
Very Rev. Howard C. Robbins 
Right Rev. Logan H. Roots 
Dr. Robert E. Speer 
Rev. Anson Phelps Stokes 
Rev. James I. Vance 
Prof. Henry B. Washburn 
President Mary E. Woolley 
Prof. Henry B. Wright 


Chairman —William Adams Brown 
Secretary —Samuel McCrea Cavert 


CONTENTS 


Editorial Preface . iii 

PART I 

Why the Church Must Be a Teacher 

CHAFTKX PAGE 

I The Secularization of Public Education. 3 

1. The Development of Public Education in 

America . 4 

2. The Elimination of Religion from Public Edu¬ 

cation . 8 

3. The Danger of the Present Educational Situ¬ 

ation . 20 

4. The Necessity for a New Conscience on the 

Church’s Educational Responsibility. 28 

II The Educational Function of the Church . 38 

1. The Whole Work of the Church as an Educa¬ 

tional Enterprise . 38 

2. The Church’s Educational Work in the Stricter 

Sense . 43 

PART II 

How the Church Should Teach 

III Teaching the Christian Religion to the Child. .. 63 

1. Infancy and Upward. 64 

2. Earlier Childhood . 7 1 

3. Later Childhood . 76 

IV Teaching the Christian Religion to Youth . 89 

1. Early Adolescence . 9° 

2. Later Adolescence . 98 

V Teaching the Christian Religion to the Modern 

Man . 108 

1. The Social Environment of the Modern Man 108 

2. Consequences for the Educational Task of the 

Church . 117 

• • 
vu 



















Vlll 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

VI Christianizing Public Opinion . 124 

1. The Wider Teaching Mission of the Church.. 126 

2. How the Church Can Influence Public Opinion 132 

3. Beginning to Deal with the Problem. 138 

PART III 

How the Church Should Organize Its Teaching 

VII The Teaching Agencies of the Local Church : 

A Critique . 145 

1. Agencies Directly Connected with the Church 147 

2. Agencies Related to the Church. 170 

3. Other Community Agencies . 173 

VIII The New Movement for Week-Day Religious Edu¬ 
cation . 176 

1. Causes of the Week-Day Movement . 177 

2. Present Status of Week-day Schools . 179 

3. The Week-day School Evaluated. 190 

4. The Future of the Movement. 192 

IX Securing a Unified Educational Program for the 

Church . 196 

1. The Need for a Unified Program in the Local 

Churich . 196 

2. The Need for a Unified Program in the Com¬ 

munity . 199 

3. The Need for Cooperation among the National 

Agencies . 205 

PART IV 

The Church Training for Christian Leadership 

X Religious Education in the College. 231 

1. The College Background Favorable to Reli¬ 

gious Training . 232 

2. The Teaching of the Bible in the Curriculum 242 

3. Religious Education in the Curriculum . 247 



















CONTENTS ix 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XI Religious Education in the Tax-Supported Insti¬ 
tution . 250 

1. The Interest of the State University in Re¬ 

ligion . 251 

2. Types of Religious Work in State Institutions 254 

3. Suggestions for the Future. 267 

XII Education for the Christian Ministry. 271 

1. The Present Agencies of Theological Educa¬ 

tion . 271 

2. Conditions Affecting Present-Day Theological 

Education . 275 

3. How the Seminaries Are Facing the Situation 280 

4. Desiderata for the Future . 284 

Classified Bibliography . 297 

Index . 305 
















I f 























PART I 


WHY THE CHURCH MUST BE A 

TEACHER 





























CHAPTER I 


THE SECULARIZATION OF PUBLIC EDUCA¬ 
TION 

The responsibility for the training of the young rests 
chiefly upon three great institutions of human society— 
the family, the Church, and the State. Just what share 
each of these institutions shall have and what shall be 
their precise relation are questions to which we have 
no final answer. The answer depends, in part, upon ethi¬ 
cal, political, and religious principles concerning which 
there may be honest differences of conviction, and in 
part upon the changing conditions of practical life which 
bring about, from time to time, readjustments in theory 
and practice. 

Historically, such shifts in the balance of responsibility 
have taken place as are thus to be expected. Roughly 
speaking, the major responsibility for the education of 
children rested in ancient times upon the family, and 
in the Middle Ages upon the Church, while the trend 
of modern times has been to lay increasing responsi¬ 
bility upon the State. 

There stands to the credit of the United States the 
conception and development of a system of free tax- 
supported schools, non-sectarian and publicly controlled, 
to promote the common welfare and to serve as the 
instrument of democracy. We have now become so 
accustomed to the idea of free public education that we 
accept it as a matter of course and are apt to forget that 
it became established as the educational policy of America 

3 


4 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 

only after a long and, at times, hard struggle. “Ex¬ 
cepting the battle for the abolition of slavery,” says the 
most competent historian in this field, “perhaps no ques¬ 
tion has ever been before the American people which 
caused so much feeling or aroused such bitter antag¬ 
onism/’ 1 


i. Development of Public Education in America 

In the early colonies there were three different atti¬ 
tudes toward education, which later served to shape the 
educational development of the several States and to 
determine the character of the struggle which finally 
issued in the establishment of our present policy. In 
the southern colonies generally, education was viewed as 
primarily the private concern of parents. They hired 
private tutors for their children or paid for their tuition 
in private schools. Neither Church nor State felt any 
definite obligation with respect to education, other than 
as a charitable provision for the children of the poor. In 
the middle colonies education was conceived to be chiefly 
the function of the Church, as illustrated on the Protes¬ 
tant side by Pennsylvania, on the Roman Catholic side by 
Maryland. Schools were established by the Churches, 
sometimes with subsidies by the State, and all State in¬ 
terference with the Church control of education was 
resented. In the New England colonies, except Rhode 
Island, education was regarded as the business of the 
community. The public-school policy was adopted and the 
State by law compelled the towns to maintain schools, 
and parents to send their children to them. Of these 
three attitudes, that which was characteristic of New 
England finally won out, though the victory of the prin- 

1 E. P. Cubberley, “Public Education in the United States,” 
p. 119, New York, 1919. 



SECULARIZATION OF PUBLIC EDUCATION 5 

ciple of free public education was not assured until the 
middle of the nineteenth century. 

In the fulfilment of this policy, there has gradually been 
developed in America a great national system of public 
education. Over 20,000,000 children are enrolled in our 
elementary public schools, which are maintained by taxa¬ 
tion at a cost, before the war, of more than $30 for each 
pupil, 50 per cent, more than England's pre-war expendi¬ 
ture for elementary education, and nearly twice that of 
Germany. Secondary public schools have multiplied and 
grown astonishingly during the past 50 years. In 1870 
there were about 500 free public high schools in this 
country; now there are more than 16,000, with an en¬ 
rollment of 2,000,000 pupils, 30 per cent, of all the boys 
and girls of high-school age in the country. The relative 
number of those attending private secondary schools has 
been steadily decreasing. In 1890, 32 per cent, of the 
pupils attending secondary schools were in private insti¬ 
tutions; now only 8.8 per cent. The estimated cost per 
pupil for the whole country, in 1918, was $84.59. 

The principle of free public education has been ex¬ 
tended in this country even to institutions of higher edu¬ 
cation. In most States a State university is maintained 
at public expense, free of tuition charges to the children 
of citizens of that commonwealth; in some States there 
are other tax-supported institutions of college grade, 
notably colleges of agriculture and colleges for the train¬ 
ing of teachers. About 40 per cent, of the college and 
university students of the country are enrolled in these 
public institutions. The cost, in 1918, was $505 per 
student. 

This system of public schools and colleges constitutes 
as a whole a great and daring experiment in public edu¬ 
cation. The fact is, as Professor C. H. Judd declares, 
“that we are trying to give everybody in this country 
at public expense a higher education than he could get 
anywhere else in the world.” 


6 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 

The schools of today touch children’s lives and influ¬ 
ence their development at many more points than the 
schools of fifty years ago. The curriculum of public edu¬ 
cation has been greatly enriched. The growth of knowl¬ 
edge and the application of science to the various fields of 
human industry; the development of invention, manufac¬ 
ture, and commerce; the social and economic changes 
involved in the industrial revolution and in the massing 
of population in cities; and the correlative changes in 
home life, have opened to the schools new avenues of 
service and thrown upon them new duties. 

In the elementary and secondary public schools of to¬ 
day children learn not only “the three R’s,” the languages, 
and the traditional subjects of literature, history, and 
geography, but the physical and biological sciences and 
their applications; cooking, sewing, and household econ¬ 
omy; carpentering and cabinet-making; metal working, 
forging, and the use and care of machinery; gardening, 
agriculture, dairying, and stock-raising; stenography, type¬ 
writing, bookkeeping, and the economics of business; 
journalism and printing; drawing, painting, modeling, 
and decorating; music, dancing, dramatic expression, and 
public speaking; gymnastics, athletics, physical educa¬ 
tion, personal hygiene, and the principles of public health. 
The fact is that under present conditions of life we must 
rely upon the schools, very largely, not only to impart 
to children the new knowledge and power with which 
the progress of science, invention, and discovery is so 
richly endowing our time, but to afford to them much 
of the sense-experience, motor training, moral disci¬ 
pline, and the educative opportunities to handle and make 
things, to work and to play, to bear responsibilities and 
to share in group activities, which under simpler social 
conditions were afforded to children by the contacts of 
everyday life in the home and in the community. 

Perhaps no better formula could be found to express 
this widening of the functions and enrichment of the 


SECULARIZATION OF PUBLIC EDUCATION 7 

curriculum of our schools than is embodied in the state¬ 
ment that the schools of today constitute a fairly faithful 
transcript or reproduction, on a small scale, of life itself . 
The schools are no longer mere instruments of drill in the 
clerical arts or transmitters of a conventional heritage of 
book-knowledge; they constitute rather the fundamental 
means whereby society as a whole undertakes to repro¬ 
duce itself and to shape its own progress. Education, the 
wisest of men have long said, is not a mere preparation 
for life; it is life itself. The schools of today have 
largely caught that vision, and are seeking to realize it in 
their work. The field of their activity is as broad as life. 
Theoretically, no human interest or occupation lies with¬ 
out their purview. Practically, their failure to take ac¬ 
count of any such interest or occupation is presumptive 
evidence of its lack of worth or importance. 

No one has done more to interpret the educational 
significance of the changed conditions of modern life, and 
to work out the functions of the school in view of these 
conditions, than John Dewey. For him, education faces 
toward the future rather than toward the past. It is the 
process whereby society reproduces its own life, perpetu¬ 
ates its interests and ideals, shapes its future, and ensures 
its progress. The end of education is not merely knowl¬ 
edge or power, but social efficiency, which includes, in a 
democratic society, the development of initiative, responsi¬ 
bility, and good-will. Such social efficiency can be 
acquired only by actual participation in the life and activ¬ 
ities of a democratic society. It is the business of the 
school, therefore, to foster such a society and to induce 
such participation on the part of children. The school 
should thus be a miniature world of real experiences, real 
opportunities, real interests, and real social relations. It 
must, of course, be a world simplified and suited to the 
active powers of children; it must be a world, moreover, 
widened, balanced, purified, and rightly proportioned as 
compared with the particular section of the grown-up 


8 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 


world that lies immediately without its bounds; it is a 
world, again, which contains a teacher who is at once 
leader, inspirer, interpreter, and friend. But it is a real 
world which reflects the fundamental, truer interests and 
values of the world without. Within this school-world 
children learn by working rather than merely by listening 
or reading; develop originality, initiative, responsibility, 
and self-control by engaging in projects which call forth 
these qualities; and fit themselves for life by living and 
working together in cooperative, mutually helpful rela¬ 
tions. This picture is, of course, idealized and perhaps 
does not describe the average school of our acquaintance, 
but it does represent the clearly conceived goal now held 
by the forward-looking leaders who are turning their 
attention to our educational system. 

2. The Elimination of Religion from Public 
Education 

In one respect, however, neither the actual public 
schools of America nor the schools of Professor Dewey?s 
educational theory are true to the life which they seek to 
transcribe or to the society which it is their function to 
reproduce.—They omit religion. With the exception of 
the reading of a few verses from the Bible and the recital 
of the Lord’s Prayer in the schools of some States and 
communities, the teaching of religion has disappeared 
from the public schools of this country. 

Why this strange omission ? we may well imagine 
some visitor from Mars inquiring. Religion is still a 
fundamental interest of men; churches are to be found 
throughout the length and breadth of the land; God is 
worshiped among us, and missionaries of Christ go forth 
to other lands. Why should the schools, which are meant 
to epitomize life at its best, ignore man’s devotion to the 
Highest? It would seem impossible, were it not true. 

The reasons for the almost complete elimination of 


SECULARIZATION OF PUBLIC EDUCATION 9 

religious teaching and religious worship from the public 
schools are to be found in considerations that reach far 
back into our history. In the early history of this country, 
especially during the colonial period, the aims of educa¬ 
tion were conceived generally in religious terms, and the 
curriculum of the schools was largely religious in char¬ 
acter. This was quite as true of New England, with its 
public-school policy, as of those colonies where the schools 
were parochial. A pamphlet entitled “New England’s 
First Fruits,” published in London in 1643, states the 
motive which led the Puritans immediately to the estab¬ 
lishment of schools and a college: “After God had car¬ 
ried us safe to New England and we had builded our 
houses, provided necessaries for our livelihood, reared 
convenient places for God’s worship, and settled the civil 
government, one of the next things we longed for and 
looked after was to advance learning and perpetuate it to 
posterity, dreading to leave an illiterate ministry to the 
churches when our present ministers shall lie in the dust.” 

“The first schools in America,” says Cubberley, “were 
clearly the fruits of the Protestant Revolt in Europe. . . . 
Under the older religious theory of collective judgment 
and collective responsibility for salvation—that is, the 
judgment of the Church rather than that of individuals—• 
it was not important that more than a few be educated. 
Under the new theory of individual responsibility promul¬ 
gated by the Protestants the education of all became a 
vital necessity. . . . The Reformation movement gave a 
new motive for the education of children not intended for 
the service of the State or the Church, and the develop¬ 
ment of elementary vernacular schools was the result.” 2 

That the aim of education was conceived in religious 
terms, in the early history of America, can be shown 
abundantly by citations from the legislation of the period. 
The Massachusetts Law of 1647, which ordered the towns 


•Cubberley, op. cit., pp. 9-11. 



10 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 


to establish schools, and the Connecticut Law of 1650, 
set forth in a preamble that it is “one chief project of 
that old deluder, Satan, to keep men from the knowledge 
of the Scriptures ... by persuading them from the use 
of tongues so that the true sense and meaning of the 
original might be clouded with false glosses of saint- 
seeming deceivers.” The New Haven Code of 1655 set 
as a minimum educational standard that children “attain 
at least so much as to be able duly to read the Scriptures 
and other good and profitable printed books in the English 
tongue . . . and in some competent measure to under¬ 
stand the main grounds and principles of the Christian 
religion necessary to salvation.” The rules of the school 
at Dorchester (1645), which may be taken as typical, 
required the scholars to attend Church and to report to 
the teacher each week concerning the text and content of 
the previous Sunday’s sermon; and required the teacher 
to catechize the scholars in the principles of the Christian 
religion and “to commend his scholars and his labors 
amongst them unto God by prayer morning and evening, 
taking care that his scholars do reverently attend during 
the same.” Harvard College was founded (1636) that 
the churches might be protected from “an illiterate min¬ 
istry”; Yale (1701), to fit youth “for public employment 
both in Church and civil State.” King’s College (1754), 
now Columbia University, declared in an advertisement 
in New York papers, announcing its opening, that “the 
chief thing that is arrived at in this College is, to teach 
and engage the children to know God in Jesus Christ, to 
love and serve Him in all Sobriety, Godliness, and Rich¬ 
ness of life, with a pure Heart and a Willing Mind, and 
to train them up in all Virtuous Habits, and all such useful 
Knowledge as may render them creditable to their Fam¬ 
ilies and Friends, Ornaments to their country, and useful 
to the Public Weal in their Generation.” 3 In the Ordi- 


*E. P. Cubberley, op. cit. 



SECULARIZATION OF PUBLIC EDUCATION 


ii 


nance of 1787 establishing the great Northwest Territory, 
Congress provided that, “religion, morality, and knowl¬ 
edge being necessary to good government and the happi¬ 
ness of mankind, schools and the means of education 
shall forever be encouraged” in the States to be formed 
from that territory; and some of these States yet retain 
the provision, with this very wording in their 
constitutions. 

In consonance with the religious character of their aim, 
the curriculum of early public schools contained much 
religious material. In most of these schools the catechism 
was taught. Some Churches in New England ordered 
catechisms to be written for the instruction of their chil¬ 
dren, which were used in the town schools. In time the 
Westminster Assembly’s Shorter Catechism took the place 
of most of these local manuals of religious instruction. 
The New England Primer, which was for nearly a cen¬ 
tury and a half the chief school book of America, attain¬ 
ing a sale of at least 3,000,000 copies, was almost wholly 
composed of religious material, part of which was gradu¬ 
ally replaced, in later editions, by secular material. After 
the Primer, the Psalter, the Testament, and the whole 
Bible constituted the reading books of the schools. 

Gradually, however, the emphasis in public education 
has shifted from religious to civic, social, and industrial 
aims; and the development of the public school system 
has involved the almost complete elimination from these 
schools of religious worship and religious teaching. “The 
secularization of American education,” this has come to 
be called. The phrase must be taken objectively; it doe9 
not mean that there has been a purposed movement to 
render the schools godless, or that the American people 
have become indifferent or hostile to religion. Strange as 
it may seem, this secularization has been incidental rather 
than purposed, a sort of by-product of the slow, combined 
logic of principles, events, and human nature in the years 
since the colonies united themselves into a nation. As 


12 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 


S. W. Brown writes, after an exhaustive study of the 
subject: “Differences of religious belief and a sound 
regard on the part of the State for individual freedom in 
religious matters . . . rather than hostility to religion as 
such, lie at the bottom of the movement toward the secular 
school/’ 4 And Cubberley adds: “The secularization of 
education with us must not be regarded either as a de¬ 
liberate or a wanton violation of the rights of the Church, 
but rather as an unavoidable incident connected with the 
coming to self-consciousness and self-government of a 
great people.” 6 

Five factors chiefly have combined to bring about this 
secularization. Two of these factors are principles funda¬ 
mental to American life, never, we may hope, to be sur¬ 
rendered : 

(a) The principle of religious freedom. 

(b) The principle of public education for citizenship 
in a democracy. 

The other three factors are matters of fact, trends of 
circumstance and event: 

(c) The religious heterogeneity of the population. 

(d) Movements toward the centralization and stand¬ 
ardization of education. 

(e) The growth of knowledge and the development 
of the sciences and arts. 

We must briefly consider the influence of each of these 
factors. 

(i) The Principle of Religious Freedom—"We may 
be amused at the seeming inconsistency with which the 
early settlers of New England who came to America for 
the sake of freedom to worship and to serve God as 
conscience bade them, penalized with various disabilities 

4 S. W. Brown, “The Secularization of American Education,” 

p. 3. 

# E. P. Cubberley, op. cit., p. 173. 



SECULARIZATION OF PUBLIC EDUCATION 13 

any who came to dwell among them who did not share 
their religious convictions—“Quakers, Ranters, Anabap¬ 
tists, Church of England men, and the like.” But this 
was simply because they were so concerned to maintain 
the integrity of their own little groups and to preserve 
for themselves the freedom which they had so hardly 
won. They were entirely willing that the folk who dif¬ 
fered from them should be free to believe and worship 
as they chose, provided they did it somewhere else, and 
did not disrupt by their presence the unity of the theo¬ 
cratic fellowship which the settlers had established. 

Such isolation of little theocratic communities could 
not, of course, endure. When finally the thirteen colonies 
came together to form the United States of America, 
seven of them held the Anglican faith as their established 
religion, three Congregationalism, and three had refused 
to declare preference for any form of faith. The problem 
was settled by the Constitutional Convention in accord¬ 
ance with the principle of religious freedom. Provisions 
were inserted in the Constitution which guarantee the free 
exercise of their religious faith to all, and forbid the 
establishment by Congress of any State religion, or the 
requirement of any religious test or oath as a prerequisite 
for holding any office under the control of the United 
States Government. 

That solution of the problem, and the principle of 
religious freedom which underlies it, we may well hope, 
America will never surrender. Religion must not be made 
a matter of majority vote; the rights of the minority, even 
of the individual, in matters of conscience and religious 
faith, must be preserved. The bearing of this principle 
upon the life of the public schools is obvious. The State 
must not, through its schools, force upon the children of 
any citizen doctrines and practices which are not in accord 
with his religious beliefs and his desire concerning the 
religious education of his children. 


14 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 

“The far-reaching importance for our future national 
life of these sane provisions (of the Constitution), and 
especially their importance for the future of public edu¬ 
cation, can hardly be over-estimated. This action led to 
the early abandonment of State religions, religious tests, 
and public taxation for religion in the old States, and to 
the prohibition of these in the new. It also laid the foun¬ 
dations upon which our systems of free, common, public, 
tax-supported, non-sectarian schools have since been built 
up. How we ever could have erected a common public 
school system on a religious basis, with the many religious 
sects among us, it is impossible to conceive. Instead, we 
should have had a series of feeble, jealous, antagonistic, 
and utterly inefficient Church school systems, confined 
chiefly to elementary education, and each largely intent 
on teaching its peculiar Church doctrines and struggling 
for an increasing share of public funds.” 6 

(2) The Principle of Public Education for Citizen¬ 
ship in a Democracy .—In theocratic New England the 
fact that the care of the schools was assigned to the civil 
organization rather than to the ecclesiastical seems to have 
been a matter of expediency, merely due to the measure 
of taxation involved and the need for a certain amount of 
compulsion, with annexed penalties for failure to comply 
with the law. With the adoption of the national Con¬ 
stitution, however, establishing this country as a republic 
and extending the right of suffrage to male citizens gen¬ 
erally, instead of to the propertied class only, a new 
motive appeared for universal education and a new rea¬ 
son why education should be in the hands of the State. 
The welfare of a republic, as of no other form of govern¬ 
ment, is dependent upon the education of its citizens. As 
a measure of simple self-preservation a republican State 
must maintain schools. “Promote then,” said Washing¬ 
ton in his Farewell Address, “as an object of primary 
importance, institutions for the general diffusion of knowl¬ 
edge. In proportion as the structure of a government 


6 Cubberley, op. cit., pp. 55, 56. 



SECULARIZATION OF PUBLIC EDUCATION 15 

gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public 
opinion should be enlightened.” 

Here, then, is a motive for public education indigenous 
to the life of the State itself. It is easy to understand 
how, in the struggle which followed to establish systems 
of free public schools, a struggle which continued through¬ 
out more than the first half-century of our national ex¬ 
istence, this political motive came wholly to overshadow 
the religious motive. It was as a means to the welfare 
of democracy in the field of politics, rather than as the 
instrument of democracy in religion, that public pro¬ 
vision for education was urged. An interesting illustra¬ 
tion of this transfer of emphasis is furnished by the 
successive constitutions of the State of Mississippi. The 
first Constitution, adopted in 1817, contained the follow¬ 
ing section, the wording of which was modeled upon 
that of the national Ordinance of 1787 establishing the 
Northwest Territory: 

“Religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to 
good government, the preservation of liberty, and the 
happiness of mankind, schools and the means of educa¬ 
tion shall forever be encouraged in this State.” 

This section was left standing in the revision of this 
Constitution which was made in 1832; but the Constitu¬ 
tion adopted in 1868 contains a wholly new section which 
omits the religious note: 

“As the stability of a republican form of government 
depends mainly upon the intelligence and virtue of the 
people, it shall be the duty of the legislature to encourage, 
by all suitable means, the promotion of intellectual, scien¬ 
tific, moral, and agricultural improvement, by establishing 
a uniform system of free public schools.” 

Minnesota’s Constitution (1857) went even further, in 
that it removed all reference to morality, though one may 
question whether those who framed the instrument had 
any particular point in mind in making the omission: 


16 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 


“The stability of a republican form of government de¬ 
pending mainly upon the intelligence of the people, it shall 
be the duty of the legislature to establish a general and 
uniform system of public schools.” 

The principle that a democratic State must perpetuate 
itself and ensure its progress by providing for the educa¬ 
tion of its own citizens is a second principle which, we 
may well hope and believe, America will never surrender. 
As stated in the earlier years of our national history, this 
principle was made to refer merely to the perpetuation of 
our political institutions, just as there are some today 
who seem to think that “Americanization” consists in in¬ 
structing a foreign-born candidate for citizenship in the 
details of our political machinery. But we see now that 
the principle includes the whole range of life. It is the 
business of the American States, through their public 
schools, to perpetuate and to further the ideals of Amer¬ 
ican life. The political relations of life cannot be sun¬ 
dered from its economic, industrial, social, and moral 
relations. Nothing short of such a comprehensive aim 
and function as Professor Dewey attributes to the schools 
can fulfil the principle and accomplish the ends of public 
education for citizenship in a democracy such as ours. 

But are the public schools of America fully perpetuat¬ 
ing America’s ideals when they ignore or slight religion ? T 

' A remarkable illustration of the present-day interest even of 
public officials in more effective religious education is found in 
the recent action of the Legislature of South Dakota, quoted in 
The Congregationalist, March 8, 1923. It declares that “the 
strength and efficiency of any republic, a government by the 
people, depends upon the best development of those people, which 
experience has demonstrated, and history shows, cannot be with¬ 
out religion.” The resolution then urges the homes and the 
churches of the State “to intensify their work [of religious 
education] and to extend it to every child,” and concludes by 
urging “that the [public] schools promptly reform their methods 
so that the rudimentary studies, as well as the sciences, be taught 
only as subordinate to righteousness,” in the recognition “that 
all learning is but the handmaiden of eternal goodness.” 



SECULARIZATION OF PUBLIC EDUCATION 17 

As a matter of fact, the principle of public education 
for citizenship in democratic America would lead straight 
toward the inclusion of religious elements in the program 
and curriculum of the schools were it not for the warring 
views of the religious sects themselves. Neither the prin¬ 
ciple of religious freedom nor the principle of public 
education for democratic citizenship would have brought 
about the present secularization of American education 
were it not for a third factor, the religious heterogeneity 
of the population of this country. 

(3) The Religious Heterogeneity of the Population. 
—The fact of the religious heterogeneity of America is 
so notorious, and the influence so obvious, as to need but 
little discussion. So long as the people of a community 
remain fairly homogeneous, it is natural that their com¬ 
mon religious faith should be taught in their schools. The 
Westminster Catechism could be taught in the public 
schools of a New England town in the eighteenth century 
because everybody in the town believed the doctrines of 
that Catechism. But it would be hard now to find any 
town in New England, the inhabitants of which would 
readily agree on a common body of religious doctrine, or 
even of religious practice, to be taught in their schools. 

The public schools of this country have been at the 
mercy of minorities. When a group or individual has 
chosen to object, on what are averred to be conscientious 
grounds, to any religious feature of the program or 
curriculum of the schools, that feature has usually been 
dropped, and nothing else of a religious sort has taken its 
place. The result is our present situation, with the public 
schools almost completely stripped of religious elements. 

This has been done in the name of religion. It is the 
work of religious people—or, at least, of religious parti¬ 
sans. Avowed infidels or secularists have had little to do 
with it. Foreign immigration was a large factor in bring¬ 
ing it about, and the Roman Catholic Church is responsible 


18 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 


for much of it. But the process had begun long before 
the flood of immigration set in or the Catholic Church in 
this country was strong enough to raise much protest. 
The secularization of the schools of Connecticut, for ex¬ 
ample, was begun as a result of the conflicts of Congre- 
gationalists, Separatists, Episcopalians, Baptists, and 
Methodists, before the Catholic immigration had reached 
a point where that Church was a force to be reckoned 
with. 

The breach between Catholic and Protestant, how¬ 
ever, has had much more to do with the secularization of 
the public schools than the quarrels or the divisiveness of 
the Protestant denominations. This is especially true 
with respect to the use of the Bible in the schools, against 
which the Catholics have consistently protested on the 
ground that the Bible, as read by Protestants, is a sec¬ 
tarian book; that reading the Bible, together with the 
recital of the Lord’s Prayer, constitutes a type of worship 
not in accord with their practice and belief, which their 
children ought not to be compelled to attend; and that’ 
the practice of excusing their children while the rest of 
the school engages in such worship, places these children 
at a disadvantage as compared with Protestant children, 
causes them inconvenience, and throws them open to the 
contempt of their fellows. 

(4) Movements toward the Centralization and 
Standardization of Education .—In various ways the unit 
of school administration has widened from the single dis¬ 
trict to the town, the county, or the State. It has thus 
become necessary to take into consideration the rights, 
practices, opinions, and desires of larger bodies of people. 
These movements toward centralization have, on the 
whole, done much to raise the standards of the schools; 
and there is more yet to Be accomplished along these lines. 
Yet they have undoubtedly contributed to the secularizing 
of the schools. Whereas the single district may be com- 


SECULARIZATION OF PUBLIC EDUCATION 19 

paratively homogeneous, the larger unit is heterogeneous. 
If left to itself, the single district might well have its 
school teach the common religious beliefs of its citizens; 
but when that district becomes part of a county or State 
organization which sets certain standards, without includ¬ 
ing such religious instruction, the tendency is to neglect 
or minimize it. Most States, moreover, have laws for¬ 
bidding the appropriation of public school funds to 
schools in which sectarian teaching is permitted or sec¬ 
tarian textbooks used. It should perhaps be added that 
no State has a law forbidding the use of the Bible in its 
schools, although the Superior Court of California has 
recently declared the King James’ Version of the Bible a 
sectarian book. A number of States, on the contrary, 
have laws specifically requiring or permitting the Bible to 
be read in the schools, forbidding its exclusion from 
them, or stating that it shall not be deemed a sectarian 
book. 

(5) The Growth of Knowledge and the Development 
of the Sciences and Arts .—The expanding of the curric¬ 
ulum of our schools has helped to crowd religion out. 
One who studies the early American schools cannot rid 
himself of the impression of how poor was their equip¬ 
ment ; how meager was their curriculum; how few books 
the children had; and, in short, how amazingly little people 
knew about the world in which they were living, in the 
days before trains, steamships, machinery, and the science 
and invention of the nineteenth century. Children in 
the schools read much in the Psalter, Testament, and 
Bible, partly because other books were scarce; and the 
catechism occupied the place it did in the curriculum 
partly because there was no other body of knowledge 

robust enough to displace it. 

To realize how changed the situation now is, one has 
but to turn to the early part of this chapter, where were 
listed some of the great variety of subjects which are 


20 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 


taught in the public schools of today; or remind himself 
of some of the things that he would like to know, books 
that he would like to read and subjects that he would like 
to take up, but does not for lack of time. The world is 
rich in knowledge and power—so rich that it is in danger 
of over-reaching itself and forgetting what are the real 
values of life. And the curricula of our schools are over¬ 
crowded with new subjects and new materials, so that 
teachers are hard pressed to find time for them all. Un¬ 
doubtedly, this influx of new knowledge has had much to 
do, at least since the middle of the nineteenth century, 
with the dropping out of religion and religious material 
from the schools. This has not necessarily involved any 
despite of religion; it has taken place simply because room 
had to be given to the new interests which the years 
have kept bringing in such abundance, and because it was 
felt that we could rely for the teaching of religion upon 
the influences and precepts of home and Church and 
Sunday School. 

3. The Danger of the Present Educational 
Situation 

Even if the Churches of America could over-night 
acquire a new conscience with respect to their educational 
responsibility, an adequate corps of competent teachers, 
and a completely elaborated curriculum for the teaching 
of religion; and if they could at the same time mirac¬ 
ulously get into touch with the millions of children and 
young people whom they are at present failing to reach, 
the problem of religious education in this country would 
not be solved. The truth is that the secularization of 
public education in America has issued in a situation 
fraught with danger. The situation is such as to imperil, 
in time, the future of religion among our people, and, 
with religion, the future of the nation itself. 

“The future of the nation itself,” we have said, for 


SECULARIZATION OF PUBLIC EDUCATION 21 

religion is indispensable to the highest social welfare. 
We have been often told that the one essential qualifica¬ 
tion for democracy is widespread intelligence. But this 
is a deceptive and dangerous half-truth. Men have not 
only to think clearly but to act rightly. Any successful 
functioning of a democratic society requires on the part 
of the rank and file not only the capacity but also the dis¬ 
position to act for the common good. Qualifications for 
good citizenship must include intelligence and character. 
The development of right motives is an irreducible element 
in any complete education. And for the development of 
motives we must look to religion, the most powerful moral 
dynamic in the world. Without it we cannot hope to 
undergird modern life with the most compelling ideals 
and motives. 

And in the present situation in our system of public 
education the future of religion is in danger. This is 
for two reasons. First, because children will inevitably 
sense the discrepancy between the elaborate provision 
which we make, through the public schools, for their edu¬ 
cation in everything else than religion, and the poverty 
of the provision which we make for their education in 
religion. Something of this discrepancy will remain, 
however generously Churches may endow and equip their 
own schools, which they may provide for the teaching of 
religion to their children. The Churches can never com¬ 
pete with the State with respect either to the portion of 
the children’s time which they can command or to the 
money which they can invest in education. Religion, if 
it has no place in the program of the public schools, will 
always wear to children somewhat of the air of an extra 
or an afterthought. 

Will not our children, if this situation continues, come 
to regard religion as not very important after all, since it 
is the one thing which we seem not to value enough to 
give it a place in the very elaborate provision which we 
make through the public schools for their education? 


22 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 


Or they may regard ii as important, but as something 
that cannot be taught, bearing no relation to the affairs 
of this present life or to the intelligence which has been 
given us for dealing with them. Or they may regard it as 
wholly a matter of individual taste or preference—a sort 
of fad or frill, a bit of the embroidery of life, belonging 
to the realm of personal satisfaction rather than that oi 
truth, where one may believe anything he chooses, and is 
as much at liberty to accept, reject, or even invent doc¬ 
trines as he is free to like or dislike a yellow landscape of 
Turner. Which of these conclusions would be worst it 
is hard to say. But will not some such inference be in¬ 
evitable in the minds of children who face the discrepancy 
between the public school system and the educational 
efforts of the Churches? 

A second reason why the present situation is fraught 
with peril is because a system of public education that 
gives no place to religion is not in reality neutral, but 
exerts an influence, unintentional though it may be, 
against religion. For the principle of religious freedom 
embodied in the Constitution of this country, and for the 
separation of Church and State which it guarantees, we 
are rightly grateful. But surely the separation of Church 
and State must not be so construed as to render the State 
a fosterer of non-religion or atheism. Yet that is pre¬ 
cisely what is in danger of being done. A strict neutrality 
on the part of the State with respect to religion is im¬ 
possible in the exercise of its educational function. For 
the State not to include in its educational program a 
definite recognition of the place and value of religion in 
human life is to convey to children, with all of the prestige 
and authority of the schools maintained by the State, the 
suggestion that religion has no real place and value. We 
may resist the negative power of that suggestion by the 
positively religious influences of home and Church. But 
why should the State make it so difficult? Is it possible 
for home and Church to win out finally in such a conflict 


SECULARIZATION OF PUBLIC EDUCATION 23 

of educational influences? And why need there be this 
conflict ? 

As the public schools enlarge their scope, the negative 
suggestion involved in their omission of religion becomes 
stronger. When the public schools concerned themselves 
with but a fraction of life, as they did fifty years ago— 
when they did little more than drill children in the three 
R’s and transmit to them a meager, conventional heritage 
of book-knowledge—when much, often the larger part, of 
education was gotten outside of the schools, it was of little 
consequence that the interests of religion were not pro¬ 
vided for in their program. But now, when the schools 
are taking on the dimensions of life itself, it is of vital 
importance that the transcript and epitome of life which 
they furnish shall be true, rightly proportioned, and in¬ 
clusive of all its fundamental values and interests. The 
omission of religion from the public schools of today 
conveys a condemnatory suggestion to the minds of chil¬ 
dren that was quite impossible a generation ago. Its 
omission from the “schools of tomorrow,” to use the 
phrase which Professor Dewey has chosen as title of one 
of his books, will be yet worse. 

It may not be necessary, and is perhaps unwise, for the 
State to include the actual teaching of religion in the 
curriculum of the public schools. It is necessary, how¬ 
ever, for the State, in its educational program and policy, 
to afford religion such a recognition as will offset the 
condemnatory suggestion of the present situation, and 
help children to appreciate the place of religion in human 
life. Just what form that recognition should take is not 
yet clear. In many quarters the experiment is being tried 
of granting credit on the records of the public schools 
for religious education conducted in a responsible way out¬ 
side their bounds. Elsewhere the public schools are 
granting a portion of time to the Churches for the teach¬ 
ing of religion. At a later point we shall discuss these 
and similar experiments. Here we are concerned simply 


24 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 

with the principle of the State’s recognition of religion 
through its schools, not with the form which that recog¬ 
nition may take. 

The fact is that we need to face, in a more thorough¬ 
going fashion than has yet been done in this country, the 
question of the relation of religion to public education. 
Two principles have been established which touch bed¬ 
rock—the principle of religious freedom and the prin¬ 
ciple of public education for citizenship in a democracy. 
These principles must stand; they are at the foundation 
of the structure of liberty. But we have followed the 
obvious, easy line of least resistance in the process which 
has led to the present secularization of our schools. It 
is doubtful whether the principles just named demand or 
imply the degree and type of secularization which has 
been brought about. The question must be raised as to 
just how far this secularization necessarily follows from 
the principles to which we are committed, and how far, 
on the other hand, it is to be attributed to factual and 
adventitious elements of circumstance. We have too easily 
acquiesced in the dogma that, in view of the separation of 
Church and State, the public schools can have nothing to 
do with religion. It is time to stop and determine what 
the principle of the separation of Church and State in¬ 
volves, and what it does not involve, with respect to the 
education of children, which is so obviously a function 
of both. 

Two considerations give ground for hope that a way 
out of the present dangerous situation is possible without 
compromise of either principle. One is the fact that the 
secularization of public education in this country has been 
incidental rather than purposed. The other is the fact 
that it is the Churches themselves, or members of the 
Churches, who have been chiefly responsible for it. Even 
the religious heterogeneity of our population does not 
necessitate the present degree of exclusion of religion 
from public education. It is because we have held our 


SECULARIZATION OF PUBLIC EDUCATION 25 

different religious views and practices in so jealous, 
divisive, and partisan a fashion that the State has been 
obliged to withdraw religion from the curriculum and 
program of its schools. It is significant that while religion 
is often ignored in the constitutional and legislative pro¬ 
visions of the several States concerning public education, 
it is almost never forbidden or declared against, although 
laws against sectarianism in the schools abound. 

Can the Churches of America become less sectarian 
and more religious in their attitude toward the education 
of their children? If they can, the greater obstacle to a 
proper recognition of religion by the public schools will 
be removed. No less urgent than the call to Christian 
unity that comes from the mission field or the realm of a 
disordered international life, is the call of the present edu¬ 
cational situation in America. If our children and our 
children’s children are to give to religion its rightful place 
in life and education, the Churches must come together 
in mutual understanding and must cooperate, more largely 
and more responsibly than they have hitherto done, in a 
common educational policy. Only thus can they compete 
with the public school for the attention, interest, and 
respect of children. Only thus can they rise above the 
necessity of competition and make it possible for the 
public school to cooperate with them instead of ignoring 
them. 

The way out of the present situation lies with the 
Churches. It is because we have here not the State and 
the Church, nor even the State and a group of cooperat¬ 
ing Churches, but rather the State and half a hundred 
disagreeing Churches, without a common educational 
purpose or policy, and most of them without a well- 
defined educational policy of their own, that it has been 
necessary for the State, in the fulfilment of its educational 
function, to pass the Churches by. Let that situation 
cease, let the Churches agree on an educational policy 
with respect both to their own teaching work and to the 


26 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 


sort of recognition they desire that religion be afforded 
by and in the public schools, let them do their share of 
the work of education in a way that merits recognition, 
and a fit measure of recognition is made possible and will 
almost certainly follow. 

In saying this we have in mind primarily the Protestant 
Churches of this country. But an understanding as to 
the relation of religion to public education must also be 
reached with the Jewish and Roman Catholic Churches. 
This should not be difficult in the case of the Jews, whose 
religion is primarily ethical, who possess a great religious 
heritage to which we all lay claim, and who believe in the 
principle of public education for citizenship in a democ¬ 
racy. It will be difficult, doubtless, in the case of the 
Roman Catholic Church, which does not believe in the 
principle of public education. 

Let us be clear as to the cause of the difficulties which 
have stood, and are likely to stand, in the way of attempts 
to come to an understanding with the Catholic Church. 
It is not simply because the Catholic view of religion and 
of the Church is different from the Protestant, or because 
Catholics persist in regarding theirs as the only holy and 
apostolic Church and others as rebellious sects. It is, 
more than this, because the Catholic Church does not be¬ 
lieve in the principle of public education which has become 
established in the life of America. The State, according 
to its belief, has no primary right or function as an 
educator of children; that right and function belong 
to the parent, and rest ultimately upon the Church. Edu¬ 
cation as a whole is a unitary process, they hold, which 
must include religion at every point; and the State is not 
competent to teach religion. The State may therefore 
levy and collect taxes for the support of schools, and may 
set standards which it requires schools to maintain in 
certain subjects; but it is the business of the Church to 
carry on, through schools of the Church, the education of 
childhood and youth. A system of Church schools, sub- 


SECULARIZATION OF PUBLIC EDUCATION 27 

sidized by the State, is the policy which this Church aims 
to realize in America. Its authorities object to what they 
deem to be the injustice of the present situation, in that 
Catholics are taxed to support the public schools, to which 
they do not send their children, while the State refuses 
to return to them any share of these taxes for the support 
of their Church schools, for the maintenance of which 
they are, in effect, taxed again. 

That America should surrender the principle of public 
education for citizenship in a democracy is unthinkable. 
Yet that is what accession to the Catholic proposal for a 
division of the public funds would involve. This demand 
on the part of the Catholic Church was faced in many 
sections of the country in the middle of the nineteenth 
century, with the final result that almost all of the States 
passed constitutional provisions forbidding the appropria¬ 
tion of any public funds for the support of sectarian 
schools. The only hope of securing public subsidies for 
parochial schools lies in gaining a sufficient majority to 
repeal these constitutional provisions. 

It is hard for Catholic and Protestant to understand 
each other at this point. To the Protestant, the Cath¬ 
olic principle of subsidies for parochial education would 
involve the break-up of the American public school sys¬ 
tem, since the privilege granted to the Catholics must in 
equity be granted to other Churches, and possibly, indeed, 
to other groups, such as political parties and trade unions. 
The Catholic Church cannot be the one exception. The 
Catholic, on the other hand, claims to be no enemy of the 
public schools, which he is content that non-Catholics 
should keep, and he can see no reason why his Church 
should not be the only exception, since, in his view, it is 
the one true Church and no other group holds to just its 
theory of education. 

Yet mutual understanding is possible. Catholics are 
serving on many public-school boards and are teaching in 
many public schools, to the satisfaction of citizens gen- 


28 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 


erally, of whatever creed. And in a number of the cities 
and towns where experiments in week-day religious edu¬ 
cation are being conducted, in cooperation with the public 
schools, the Catholic and Protestant Churches have joined 
in the agreement which made the experiment possible. 
Catholic and Protestant alike desire the religious educa¬ 
tion of their children. They differ in that the Catholic 
holds that the whole of education, to be religiously 
motived, must be in the hands of the Church, whereas the 
Protestant believes that the Church can so cooperate with 
the public school as to make religion effective in educa¬ 
tion, even though the whole process be not under the 
Church’s control. The Catholic has fairly well established 
the proof of his theory: it does succeed in training good 
Catholics. It remains for the Protestant to prove that his 
theory will work; for it has not really been tried, in 
thoroughgoing fashion, under the conditions of modern 
life. If the Protestant Churches will try it and succeed, 
it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that the Catholic 
Church in this country may modify its policy of reliance 
upon parochial education and move in the direction of a 
larger dependence upon the public schools, with correlated 
religious education in Church schools. 

4. The Necessity for a New Conscience on the 
Church’s Educational Responsibility 

The secularization of the public school in America has 
thus thrown an unprecedented responsibility for religious 
education upon the Church. That the Church has not yet 
fulfilled this responsibility all would agree. The Churches 
of the nineteenth century rendered splendid and sacri¬ 
ficial service to higher education by the establishment and 
maintenance of academies and colleges; but they failed, 
as a rule, to conceive in educational terms their relation 
to the religious nurture of children, or to realize fully the 


SECULARIZATION OF PUBLIC EDUCATION 29 

educational task which was being thrown upon them by 
the increasing secularization of the public schools. 

In the nineteenth century catechetical instruction de¬ 
clined even in the Churches; and these depended generally, 
save in the more liturgical communions, upon successive 
waves of spiritual revival for the conversion and enlist¬ 
ment even of the children of their own members. Most 
Churches had no definite, well-planned policy for the 
religious education of children; or, what amounts to the 
same thing, their policy was one of opportunism. They 
surrendered the religious education of the children to 
various voluntary associations and agencies which sprang 
up, in more or less loose connection with the Churches, to 
meet different specific needs. The most important and 
widely effective of these voluntary agencies was the 
Sunday School, which has been for more than a century 
the institution upon which the Churches have relied. 

The initiation and wide adoption of the International 
Uniform Sunday School Lesson system in 1872 was a 
great step forward. These lessons were “uniform” in 
two senses: first, in that practically all the schools of all 
save two or three communions united in adopting this 
system of lessons; second, in that there was but one 
lesson provided for all the pupils in the school, of what¬ 
ever age and grade. In the first sense of the term, the 
uniformity of the Sunday school lessons has constituted 
one of the most widespread and significant instances, in 
the history of Protestantism, of cooperation between the 
denominations. In the second sense of the term, the uni¬ 
formity of the lessons seems to have been a necessary 
step in the development of the Sunday School, and did 
much to establish its place as the foremost agency of Bible 
study. 

This uniformity, however, has increasingly become a 
limitation, standing in the way of the fuller development 
and larger usefulness of the Sunday school as an institu¬ 
tion of religious education. The Uniform lesson system 


30 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 

is not pupil-centered; it fails to make provision for the 
successive stages in the child’s moral and religious devel¬ 
opment, and affords no special guidance or nurture in 
those periods which are generally recognized as of critical 
importance. It contains within itself no principle of pro¬ 
gression, for the same lesson is taught to old and young, 
and the pupil, caught in an endlessly repetitious cycle, is 
not able to feel himself advancing from grade to grade. 
For this reason it does not permit of any real correlation 
or connection with the rest of the pupil’s education in 
public school and college. Since it must provide a series 
of lesson topics which can be used by everyone in the 
school, the Lesson Committee is restricted in its choice to 
materials which lie in general at about the level of the 
comprehension of pupils from ten to fifteen years of age. 
Lessons so chosen are often unsuited, necessarily, to the 
understanding and religious needs of little children in the 
primary grades; and are inadequate to the intellectual, 
moral, and religious needs of the more mature young 
people and adults. 

The Uniform lesson system, moreover, is weak at just 
the point which has sometimes mistakenly been cited as 
one of its elements of strength; it does not afford to pupils 
a proper acquaintance with the Bible and knowledge of its 
content. This is in part due to the policy of publishing 
the text of the lessons, together with comments upon them, 
in paper-bound quarterlies which in too many schools take 
the place entirely of the Bible. For a time this policy 
of the publishers even operated to determine the length 
of the passages chosen as material for lessons; and it yet 
causes the Committee, when it chooses a lesson too long 
to be published in this way, to make a further selection 
of a brief passage to be printed. But the great source of 
weakness lies deeper, in a limitation inherent in the prin¬ 
ciple of lesson uniformity and inescapable as long as that 
principle is adhered to. The attempt to choose passages 
from the Bible which can serve as a common body of 


SECULARIZATION OF PUBLIC EDUCATION 31 

lesson material for all in the school, from oldest to young¬ 
est, results necessarily in an over-emphasis of the narrative 

• *ssa 

portions of the Bible, especially those shorter passages 
describing incidents which lend themselves readily to the 
drawing of distinct moral inferences, to the relative neglect 
of the Psalms, the writings of the great Prophets, the 
Wisdom literature, and the Epistles. Yet the portions 
of the Bible thus slighted are, with the exception of the 
Gospels, the highest in religious value. The tendency of 
the Uniform lessons, in view of these limitations, is to 
afford to pupils but a fragmentary knowledge of the his¬ 
tory of the Hebrew people and the early Church, and to 
give them almost no conception of the richness of the 
literature contained in the Bible and of the sweep and 
perspective of God’s progressive revelation of Himself in 
this literature and in the life which it records. 

In the ungraded character of their curriculum, resulting 
from the application of the principle of uniformity, lay 
the fundamental weakness of the Sunday Schools of the 
later nineteenth century. Other elements of weakness, in 
large part consequences of this primary educational defect, 
must also be recognized. 

(a) The small amount of time given to actual teach¬ 
ing in the classes, averaging not more than half an hour 
a week, often less. 

(b) Lack of training on the part of the teachers, and 
a too great reliance by Sunday School leaders generally, 
upon “institute” and “convention” methods as a substitute 
for more definite training. 

(c) The fact that their program was too exclusively 
one of instruction, not affording sufficient opportunity for 
the expression of the truths taught or for learning through 
doing. The result was that there sprang up within the 
churches a number of other organizations for the train¬ 
ing of children and young people in wholesome social 
living and in the attitudes, habits, and group activities 
associated with various forms of Christian service. In 


32 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 

many churches these organizations—such as mission 
bands, boys’ brigades, Christian Endeavor Societies, Scout 

Ti3E s *. 

troops, King’s Daughters—operate more or less inde¬ 
pendently, without relation to the Sunday School, and 
with policies and programs determined by their district, 
state, and national affiliations rather than by their place 
within the local Church’s educational system. There is 
duplication, overlapping, and competition on the one hand, 
and, on the other, failure to provide fully for all ages and 
sexes. There is always educational inefficiency involved 
in a situation which leaves instruction and activity sun¬ 
dered—the Sunday School with a program of instruction 
unapplied in the group life of its pupils, and the other 
organizations with programs of activity unrelated to the 
instruction which their members are receiving week 
after week in the Sunday School. 

(d) These Sunday Schools too often lacked organic 
connection with the Church. They were conducted by 
voluntary associations of teachers, and maintained by 
their own “collections.” The Church gave to such a 
school a home and the sanction of its name, but undertook 
no financial responsibility for its maintenance and no 
direct supervision of its teaching or determination of its 
policies, relying simply upon the fact that the greater 
number of its officers and teachers were, as individuals, 
members of the Church, to insure the general sympathy 
of the school with the Church’s belief and practical pro¬ 
gram. While it may be granted that this loose association 
of a Sunday School with a Church in many cases worked 
well, it is in principle unsound. And too often it did not 
work well. Some Sunday Schools failed to beget within 
their pupils a true sense of their relation to the Church, 
to inculcate loyalty to the Church, and to lead to active 
Church membership and to growth in grace within the 
Church. And many Churches failed to assume their full 
responsibility for what ought to be the school of the 
Church, maintained by the Church as a part of its con- 


SECULARIZATION OF PUBLIC EDUCATION 33 

tribution to the education of children. Even to-day, 
some of the great denominations which are splendidly 
organized for the conduct of home and foreign missions 
and for the maintenance or partial support of colleges 
and theological seminaries, fail to assume anything like 
the same degree of responsibility for their Sunday 
Schools or even to express a like degree of interest in 
their work. 

These elements of weakness are no longer characteristic 
of the more progressive of the Sunday Schools of to-day. 
The past quarter-century has witnessed a great movement 
among the Protestant Churches of America toward clearer 
aims, better methods, and the assumption of more definite 
responsibility in the field of religious education. There 
has been a gradual development of the movement for 
graded lessons since the late eighties till in 1908 the In¬ 
ternational Sunday School Lesson Committee began to 
issue a graded series. In 1914 the Committee was re¬ 
organized to include official representatives of all the 
denominations which use its lesson courses. It also de¬ 
cided to issue, in place of the old type of uniform lesson, 
what it called an Improved Uniform Lesson, which under¬ 
took to introduce the principle of the adaptation of lesson 
material to the needs of pupils of various ages, while still 
adhering in a general way to the principle of uniformity. 
In 1920 the Committee decided to move as rapidly as 
possible towards the issuance of graded lessons only. Be¬ 
ginning with 1924, it is putting this policy into effect by 
substituting for the Uniform Lesson, for children under 
twelve years, graded lessons of two types—graded by 
years and by three-year age-groups. 

The organization of the' Religious Education Associa¬ 
tion in 1903, “to inspire the educational forces of our 
country with the religious ideal, to inspire the religious 
forces of our country with the educational ideal, and to 
keep before the public mind the ideal of religious educa¬ 
tion and the sense of its need and value”; the organiza- 


34 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 

tion in 1910 of the Sunday School Council of Evangelical 
Denominations, an indication of the more definite accept¬ 
ance by the denominations themselves of responsibility for 
educational work; the beginning of the Council of Church 
Boards of Education in 1912 as an agency for cooperative 
effort in behalf of Christian colleges and the religious 
welfare of college and university students, mark impor¬ 
tant steps in the development of educational progress. In 
1920 a reorganization was begun of the International 
Sunday School Association, the older body, and the Sun¬ 
day School Council of Evangelical Denominations, which 
has now culminated in their merger in the International 
Sunday School Council of Religious Education and larger 
cooperation of the agencies of the Churches in their 
educational task. 

These dates and items represent but a few outstanding 
factors in a movement greater far than any single organ¬ 
ization or group of organizations. The fact is that we 
have begun to experience a genuine educational revival 
in the Churches. Thousands of Sunday Schools the 
country over have been graded, have broadened their 
vision and enriched their curricula. In some communities 
week-day schools of religion have been established, either 
by single Churches or by the cooperative effort of the 
Protestant Churches. Problems of curriculum, methods, 
and organization are being studied in an experimental, 
scientific way. New buildings are being erected for their 
schools by the more progressive Churches, designed with 
a view to their educational utility and furnished with 
adequate material equipment. Classes for the training of 
teachers are now frequent and community training schools 
are increasing. Thousands of teachers and prospective 
teachers of religion gather for one to three weeks of 
training in summer schools conducted by several denom¬ 
inations and by other organizations. Not a few Churches 
are employing paid teachers of religion and directors of 
religious education. Attention is at last being given 


SECULARIZATION OF PUBLIC EDUCATION 35 

to working out a basis of correlation between religious 
and public education. Courses in religious education have 
been organized and professorships of religious education 
established in colleges and theological seminaries, so that 
young men who are now entering the Christian ministry 
are being trained not simply to preach and to care for a 
parish but to direct the educational work of a Church. 

Yet the Church has still a long way to go. We are still 
inexcusably far from making any adequate provision for 
the religious education of our children. The thought and 
energy of the Church are still centered chiefly around the 
appeal to adults. It has not “set the child in the midst.” It 
has not come to a realization of its appalling loss of 
opportunity and waste of resources by not directing its 
best attention to the years before life has become “set” in 
fixed habits and customs and ideas. Religious education 
by most Churches is still regarded as a sort of appendage 
to their main business. The average church often in¬ 
cludes in its budget no item for religious education; the 
Sunday School is left to support itself out of the children’s 
pennies. The average church building has been erected 
without thought of adequate facilities for any real educa¬ 
tional work. Consecration and piety are frequently re¬ 
garded as the only essential qualifications for teaching. 
In the words of an educator who has devoted most of his 
life to the public school and is now giving his efforts to 
religious education: “A Church organized for educational 
purposes is the exception. The evidences of this are found 
in the meager program, lack of trained teachers, and the 
absence of any semblance of supervision.” 8 

Even if all the Sunday Schools were thoroughly de¬ 
veloped as educational institutions, they would be reaching 
only a fraction of the children and youth of our country. 
The Committee on Education of the International Sunday- 

*J. E. Stout, “Organization and Administration of Religious 
Education,” New York, 1922, pp. 277-278. 



36 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 

School Council of Religious Education is responsible for 
the statement that probably 27,000,000 persons in America, 
under 25 years of age, belonging to what would normally 
be the Protestant group, are not in any Sunday School 
or cradle roll department, or in touch with any organized 
religious instruction; that perhaps two out of every three 
nominally Protestant children under 25 years of age 
receive no formal religious education; that of the whole 
population under 25, including Catholic, Protestant, and 
Jewish constituencies, hardly more than three out of ten 
are enrolled for any kind of religious instruction; that on 
the average Sunday school, meeting only an hour or less 
a week and possessing altogether insufficient equipment 
and resources, has been thrown a burden which it has 
been utterly impossible for it to carry. 

It need not surprise us, therefore, that it was the well- 
nigh unanimous testimony of those who were closely in 
touch with religious work in the Army that these men, 
who were simply our ordinary youth under particularly 
revealing circumstances, displayed an astonishing lack of 
comprehension as to what the Christian religion is. On 
no point did those who assisted in making the inquiry into 
the Army, with a view to gaining fresh insights into the 
nature of “religion among American men,” find so little 
dissenting opinion as this—that the young men who have 
been, nominally at least, under the Church’s teaching 
generally have most hazy and inadequate ideas about 
Christianity and its meaning for human life. So the 
report frankly declares: 

“If there is any one point upon which chaplains agree 
it is in regard to the widespread ignorance as to the 
meaning of Christianity and Church membership. . . . 
We might well hope that in a ‘Christian’ country men 
generally, even those without any allegiance to Christ and 
His Church, would know what Christianity is. Chaplains 
say that they do not know. And they go beyond that and 
say that men nominally within the Church, men who have 
been to Christian schools, are in much the same condi- 


SECULARIZATION OF PUBLIC EDUCATION 37 

tion. . . . The Church as a teacher has failed to instruct 
its own membership and present its Gospel to the men 
just outside its doors. If we learn our lesson the result 
will be a vastly greater emphasis on our teaching 
function/' 9 

Evidence could be multiplied to show that the other 
educational forces of the Church do not make up the 
deficiency of the Sunday School. The influence of the 
home, most important of all as a teacher of religion, has 
been seriously undermined by conditions of our modern 
life. The pulpit, as a teaching agency, has been fatally 
weak, confining itself far too much to the role of exhorter 
and neglecting the Apostle’s insistent injunction that the 
minister must be “apt to teach.” Mission study groups, 
young people’s societies, Young Men’s and Young 
Women’s Christian Associations, Scout troops—these and 
other influences contribute important educational results, 
but the very fact that they are all fragmentary and dis¬ 
jointed efforts, instead of parts of a unified and a con¬ 
sciously rounded program of education for the Church as 
a whole, shows how far it has to go before it can claim 
to have made earnest with its inescapable duty as a 
teacher of the Christian religion. 

•“Religion among American Men.” Association Press, 1920, 

pp. 14, 131. 



CHAPTER II 


THE EDUCATIONAL FUNCTION OF THE 

CHURCH 

In a general but vital and fundamental sense the whole 
life of the Christian Church is an educational enterprise, 
and its entire work is that of teaching. 

This appears in the fact that the Church as a whole 
bears all the typical characteristics of any educational 
enterprise. The marks of an educational enterprise are: 
(a) that it concerns itself with growing, developing per¬ 
sons; (b) that it seeks to engage these persons definitely 
in some form of study or purposeful activity; (c) that 
its primary interest, in so doing, is the development of 
the persons themselves, rather than the objective results 
of their activity; (d) that it seeks to communicate to 
them, while they in turn seek to profit by, the riper ex¬ 
perience of others; (e) that the whole process has its 
face set toward the future, aiming to promote their de¬ 
velopment, and to help them gain new knowledge, added 
power, and richer character; (f) that the whole process, 
again, is socially motived, both in that it implies some sort 
of fellowship, and in that its goal is the betterment, not 
merely of individuals, but of human society. 

All of these marks are characteristic of the Christian 
Church. 

i. The Whole Work of the Church as an Educa¬ 
tional Enterprise 

Like other educational enterprises the primary interest 
and ultimate concern of the Church is with persons, not 
things. However mature the persons may be who are 

38 


EDUCATIONAL FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 39 

associated in its fellowship or come within the range of 
its influence, the Church’s attitude toward them is in 
certain respects like that which the world in general as¬ 
sumes toward those who are immature, being more inter¬ 
ested in the development of the persons themselves than 
in the cold appraisal of the objective results of their 
activity. The Church sees in them the promise and 
potency of eternal life, discerns qualities and powers 
hardly touched by the surface details with which men are 
so prone to busy themselves, and undertakes to call forth 
these powers and to educate for time and for eternity the 
children of God. Its aim for them is fundamentally ed¬ 
ucational, “that they may have life and have it more 
abundantly.” Toward this goal of a more abundant life 
schools of various sorts take their pupils part of the way. 
The Church, convinced that no one reaches that goal with¬ 
out God, seeks to promote the moral and spiritual growth 
of individuals by bringing them into fellowship with God 
through Christ. 

This emphasis on the concern of the Church for persons 
does not mean that the Church is not interested in ex¬ 
ternal conditions or objective results. It aims at nothing 
less than the regeneration of the whole of life, in all of 
its social, economic, industrial, and political relations. 
There is no interest so specialized, no activity so “secu¬ 
lar,” as to fall wholly without its purview. But the 
Church values objective results in terms of their effects 
upon and within persons; and it believes that the only 
way to secure sound and lasting objective results is 
through the education and upbuilding of the persons 
involved. In this the Church follows its Master. Jesus 
was a Teacher, though He kept no school and did not use 
the formal methods of the professional teachers of His 
day. In the fundamental, vital sense of the term with 
which we are here concerned, Jesus’ aim and method were 
educational. He sought to establish the Kingdom of God 
in the hearts and lives of men. He deliberately rejected 


40 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 


the political methods that were open to Him; He under¬ 
took His work by the more inward, leaven-like method of 
the moral and spiritual education of persons. 

A mistaken antithesis has sometimes been drawn be¬ 
tween evangelistic and educational ways of conceiving 
the function of the Church. Those who believe in 
religious education have been accused of ignoring the 
grace of God and of imagining that morality and religion 
may be educed from man himself or grown within him 
by processes of skilful cultivation, without need of the 
regenerating Spirit of God. Those, on the other hand, 
who have usurped to themselves the name of evangelists, 
have at times spoken as though the message of salvation 
were preeminently contained in Jesus’ comparison of the 
Spirit to the wind, which “bloweth where it listeth, and 
thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence 
it cometh and whither it goeth”; and they have relied 
upon spasmodic revivals of religion to the neglect of the 
more sober, constant, and constructive methods of educa¬ 
tional evangelism. Less than a hundred years ago, debate 
was still waging in New England as to whether there 
really are or can be any means of grace. 

It cannot be urged too strongly that the antithesis thus 
set up is mistaken and untrue. A scheme of Christian 
education that should fail to take account of man’s de¬ 
pendence upon the Spirit of God would contradict the 
very Gospel which it undertakes to teach. “By grace are 
ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is 
the gift of God.” But the Spirit of God is not arbitrary; 
His grace does not baffle expectation. It is, in fact, a 
species of atheism—unintended yet practical atheism— 
to deny God’s presence and power in the natural laws 
which He has ordained and to fail to recognize in these 
laws the accustomed means and channels of His will. 
Not evangelism or education, then, is the alternative 
before the Church; its work is that of evangelism through 
education. The relation is organic; these terms express 


I 


EDUCATIONAL FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 41 

different aspects merely of the one great purpose and 
work for which the Church exists. We may speak with 
equal propriety of educational evangelism or of evangel¬ 
istic education. 

Writing for public-school teachers on “Education for 
Character,” Professor F. C. Sharp has insisted that the 
aim of moral education is the development of persons 
who (1) know what is right, and are able to discover the 
right even in new and complex situations; (2) appreciate, 
love, and desire the right; (3) do what is right, because 
they have acquired the necessary energy, skill, and self- 
control to make their knowledge and desire pass into 
action. Religious education includes all that moral edu¬ 
cation involves, plus the recognition of the presence and 
power of God. 

The term plus, in this connection, may be misleading. 
It expresses the truth that the religious education which 
is the aim of the Christian Church is not something less, 
but more, than moral education. It becomes misleading 
if it conveys the impression that this more is a matter of 
simple addition, and that religious education differs from 
moral education only in the sense that God is one more 
person to be taken into account and that eternity is an 
infinite extension of time. The Christian ethics is indis¬ 
solubly bound up with the Christian metaphysics; or better, 
in Christianity ethics and metaphysics are organically in¬ 
terdependent. Christianity is a way of life which is 
grounded in a way of conceiving the universe—Jesus’ 
way of life, rooted in Jesus’ way of conceiving God and 
the world. The recognition of the presence and power of 
God in the world of nature and in the life of men makes 
a difference at every point. Nothing is quite the same 
as it would be without Him. The Christian religion in¬ 
fuses a new motive and spirit into the whole of moral 
education. It introduces a new perspective and range 
into the materials of knowledge and moral judgment; its 
appeal to the powers of appreciation, affection, and desire 


42 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 


is incomparably stronger, richer, and deeper; and it 
assures to him who is striving for self-control and moral 
strength the backing of the universe; it renders available 
and effective the power and grace of God. 

The Church’s teaching work, when religious education 
is thus conceived, is no simple task, no single specialized 
department among others in a complex program of activi¬ 
ties. It is rather coextensive with the Church’s life and 
fellowship. It is itself the whole complex program. 

So the Church’s educational purpose cannot be accom¬ 
plished by short cuts—by the study of the facts of Biblical 
history, by the memorization of texts, by a term of indoc¬ 
trination in a pastor’s class, or by other schemes for 
imparting religious information. All of these may be 
good in their place; but they are only parts, and cannot 
constitute the whole. Religious education means growth 
in Christian living through guided experience therein. It 
means the development of Christian attitudes, Christian 
purposes, Christian standards of conduct, Christian con¬ 
victions, a Christian way of life in each succeeding stage 
of the enlarging experience of childhood, youth, and 
maturity. The fulfilment of the Church’s educational 
purpose requires nothing less than continuous fellowship 
in the whole of its life and work. 

The converse of this is that all of the Church’s life 
and work, as a whole and in its various parts, may prop¬ 
erly be tested and evaluated in the light of its teaching 
purpose. Does this or that item of its program contribute 
as it should to the realization of that aim ? Is the preach¬ 
ing from its pulpit, for example, a disconnected string 
of oratorical efforts upon passing topics of the day or 
such as builds people up in the knowledge and love of 
God? Does its public worship bring the congregation 
into the presence of God, and open their minds and hearts 
to His love and truth? Does it give them a clearer vision 
of what the Kingdom of God means for our industrial 


EDUCATIONAL FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 43 

and social and international life and send them out with a 
new determination to work for it ? Do people come to this 
particular Church to learn, to serve, and to grow, or to be 
coddled in spirit and confirmed in their prejudices? Is its 
evangelism of the spasmodic, crowd-psychology type, or 
constant, sustained, and constructive? Does it merely 
“give to missions,” or is it really interested in extending 
its fellowship, in intelligent and sympathetic fashion, to 
its brothers in foreign lands? Does its philanthropy 
involve paternalism or fellowship? Is its social service 
institutional only or personal? 

Or, to judge the Church as a whole, is the fellowship ex¬ 
perienced within the Church a positive Christian influence ? 
The experience of unselfish living in a Christian atmo¬ 
sphere as a member of a Christian social group, is, in the 
last analysis, the one great Christian educator. To teach 
brotherhood, unselfishness, democracy in text-books and 
classrooms will be of no avail if the fellowship of the 
Church is unbrotherly, selfish, undemocratic, indis¬ 
tinguishable from the life of the world. For then the 
most powerful educational influence has not been Chris¬ 
tian at all. 

These and their like are educational questions. They 
are the sort that present themselves when the life of the 
Church is tested by the marks of an educational enter¬ 
prise, in the light of its ultimate concern with the develop* 
ment of persons into that fulness of life and character 
which is open to them as children of God and learners 
of Jesus Christ. 

2 . The Church’s Educational Work in the 
Stricter Sense 

In a more specific sense, we may understand by the 
teaching work of the Church those particular aspects of 
its life and work which are more immediately and directly 
educational in purpose and method. 


44 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 

The various phases of the life and service of the Church 
differ, naturally, in the immediacy with which they bear 
upon the educational purpose that gives final meaning 
and value to the whole, and in the relative directness with 
which they make conscious use of the methods of teach¬ 
ing. All contribute ultimately to the one great educational 
end toward which the Church labors—the regeneration 
and reconstruction of human society. Yet, thinking in 
terms of proximate purposes and immediate methods, we 
speak of various activities of the Church as evangelistic, 
missionary, philanthropic, social, rather than as phases of 
its teaching work. What, then, in the more immediate 
and specific sense, do we conceive to be the teaching work 
of the Church? 

The answer, even when the question is thus restricted, 
is not simple, but includes at least the following elements, 
which, though not separable “departments” of work, de¬ 
serve separate attention and are all indispensable parts of 
the Church’s educational program: 

(a) The training of children and youth in the Chris¬ 
tian way of life. 

(b) The fostering of the moral and spiritual growth 
of those who have passed beyond the status of childhood; 
and the lifting of the Christian life above the level of 
habit and custom to that of intelligence, through the 
interpretation of Christian experience in terms of its 
fundamental ideas, motives, and beliefs. 

(c) The creating of an intelligent and Christian public 
opinion, through productive research into the application 
of Christianity to contemporary social problems, and the 
dissemination of the results of this research both through 
the Church’s own agencies and through other agencies 
which are constantly shaping the attitudes and points 
of view of society. 

(d) The fitting of young people, through institutions 
of higher education, for service to the Church and to 


EDUCATIONAL FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 45 

society in places of initiative, responsibility, and 
leadership. 

1. The Moral and Religious Education of Children. 
—The education of children depends primarily upon their 
fellowship with older folk in various social groups, as 
these are concerned with the common human interests 
and occupations. Education began in the family and the 
tribe as a matter simply of care for dependent and rela¬ 
tively helpless, yet growing and maturing, offspring. Its 
methods were those of direct personal association in the 
affairs of the group, involving imitation on the part of 
the younger, and simple communication on the part of 
the older. The development of what we call civilization 
has been marked in general by an increasing dependence 
upon schools as the instruments of education. As the 
experience of the race accumulates, knowledge grows, 
the arts and sciences expand, occupations diversify and 
become specialized, and life as a whole becomes more 
complex, its deeper meanings no longer upon the surface 
of the daily round of behavior, the education of the child 
becomes a task too great for the unaided parents. It 
requires more time than they can give and more technical 
ability than they possess. So schools are necessary; and 
education becomes, in part, the business of especially 
trained teachers, who bring children into an especially 
arranged institutional environment and furnish them with 
material that has been carefully selected and graded with 
a view to its educative value. In part, we have said; and 
in part only. The parents can never wholly abdicate their 
educational function; and every social group with which 
a child comes into contact has something to do, however 
indirectly, with his education. The moral and religious 
aspects of education, particularly, while properly a direct 
concern of the school, will always depend largely upon 
the personal associations and contacts of the pupils’ life. 

The primary principle, then, underlying the Chris- 


46 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 

tian education of children, which is the most obvious 
aspect of the teaching work of the Church, is that of their 
fellowship with older folk in social groups which are 
whole-heartedly and genuinely Christian in spirit and life. 

Of these groups, by far the most important is the 
family. Horace Bushnell found in what he called the 
organic unity of the family the natural basis for his prin¬ 
ciple of Christian nurture: “That the child is to grow up 
a Christian, and never know himself as being otherwise.” 
Dr. Edward Lyttelton, writing more recently from the 
standpoint of long experience as the headmaster of a 
great English public school, describes the life of the fam¬ 
ily in the home as “The Corner-stone of Education,” and 
records his conviction that the great moral and spiritual 
alternative is decided for most boys in the course of their 
first eight years of life as children in the home with their 
parents. The conversions which take place in the teens 
or later, he believes, are to be accounted for chiefly as 
the coming to full fruit and to clear consciousness of the 
influences of these early years. One can conceive no 
better training-place for character than the home in which 
dwells the Christian family, a little group of old and 
young, mature and immature, bound together by ties of 
mutual affection, placing personal values first, constrained 
by the manifold contacts of their common life to have 
regard each for the other, always giving and receiving 
service, with opportunities for helpfulness, unselfishness, 
and even self-sacrifice, so constant as to make these a 
matter of course, and in all this manifesting the love, joy, 
and peace which are the fruits of the Spirit of God. In 
such a home the instruction of the children in religion is 
natural and easy, for it is but an explanation of the 
motives which underlie the daily life in which they share. 

So the first item in the Christian education of children 
is the Christian education of parents. A reviewer of Dr. 
Lyttelton’s book complained that its program for the 
training of children is impossible, in that it demands 


EDUCATIONAL FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 47 

nothing less than the conversion of the parents to single- 
minded, whole-hearted Christian living. But why should 
we expect anything else ? At the foundation of the 
Church’s teaching work lies the Church’s effort to stim- 
ulate, guide, and sustain a Christian family life in the 
homes of the community. 

The Church helps in the Christian education of chil¬ 
dren, further, by all that it does to determine the char¬ 
acter of the community in which they are brought up, 
and the spirit of the wider fellowships into which they 
enter as they grow older. There are no better practical 
tests of a community than those suggested by the ques¬ 
tion : “Is it a good place in which to bring up children ?” 
The answer to that question depends very largely upon 
the degree to which the churches of the community are 
serving, in leaven-like fashion, to inspire and regenerate 
the whole of its life. From this point of view the whole 
of the Church’s life and work is again seen to be of the 
utmost educational value and significance. That there 
should be no saloons, brothels, or gambling-halls; that 
motion-picture shows should be decent and dance-halls 
respectable; that housing should be adequate and sanita¬ 
tion good; that workmen should receive just wages; 
that there should be a weekly day of rest and worship for 
all; that government should be honest and business be 
carried on in equity; that differing racial groups should 
receive fair and friendly treatment; that there should be 
equal opportunity for all to develop their personalities to 
the full—all these are matters that are properly objects of 
the Church’s concern and that indirectly, yet vitally, affect 
the moral and spiritual development of every child. 

The Church educates children, again, by associating 
them with one another and with their parents and other 
older folk in its own fellowship and service. The Church 
is a larger family—the family of God the Father. As 
such, it is not an organization of grown-ups merely or 
of saints made perfect. "The promise,” according to a 


48 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 

text of Scripture which Horace Bushnell loved to quote, 
“is to you and to your children.” It is of the utmost 
importance, educationally, that children be afforded a 
place in the Church’s fellowship comparable to the place 
that they occupy in the family group. They should be 
made to feel that they are the Church’s children, and 
that it is their Church. They should take part in its 
services of worship, and should share, in the measure of 
their understanding and ability, in its active enterprises 
of good-will. Thus they will be trained, by fellowship 
with their elders, in the habits and attitudes which are 
characteristically Christian; they will grow up feeling 
themselves within the Church rather than outside of it; 
they will find in it the natural home of their spirit and in 
due time they will desire to take upon themselves the vows 
of discipleship and to assume the full responsibilities 
which are laid upon its members. 

Let it not be concluded, from this emphasis upon fel¬ 
lowship as primary and fundamental, that instruction has 
no place, and that the education of children in religion is 
a matter of simple contagion or training in habit and 
attitude alone. Instruction is a means whereby experi¬ 
ences are shared and interpreted, and the more experi¬ 
enced are able to give help to the less experienced, and to 
transmit to them the accumulated heritage of the race’s 
wisdom. As in education generally, so also in moral and 
religious education, instruction is indispensable. The point 
that needs emphasis is that instruction which is rooted 
and grounded in fellowship is vital and meaningful , while 
instruction without fellowship lacks motive and content. 
Instruction in morals and religion means most when it 
appears as communication motived by the exigencies, 
opportunities, and enterprises of fellowship in the life of 
the home, the community, and the Church. The instruc¬ 
tion then serves to explain the motives which are actually 
at work in the life the child is sharing, and to impart 
information needed in its enterprises. 


EDUCATIONAL FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 49 

Yet, just as the community can no longer leave the 
education of children wholly to their association with 
their parents in the affairs of everyday life, the Church 
cannot depend wholly, for the moral and religious educa¬ 
tion of children, upon the degree of training and instruc¬ 
tion which is incidental to their fellowship with older folk 
in such ways as we have mentioned. The Church, like 
the community, must maintain a school. And the Church 
school must take as its work that part of the education of 
children which the public school can not so well accom¬ 
plish, their education in morals and religion. 

The reasons why the Church must maintain a school 
are similar to the reasons for the establishment and 
growth of schools generally. There is much to learn, in 
religion as in other things, and ever more as experience 
widens and deepens. There is the same necessity for 
gradation of materials as in education generally, that 
they may be adapted to the pupil’s needs and abilities, and 
may lead him on, in sound progression of development, 
to the ordered knowledge of human life and destiny, the 
right affections and motives, and the standards of conduct, 
which are religion’s goal. This gradation implies the 
establishment of special environments controlled by edu¬ 
cative purposes, and the service of teachers who under¬ 
stand children and know how to guide their development. 
So education in religion, too, passes in part—but in part 
only—beyond the range of the average parent’s time and 
ability; and it becomes the duty of the Church to main¬ 
tain schools for the teaching of religion which are as 
competent in their own field as we expect the public 
schools to be in the fields which belong to them. 

The need for such schools has been met in America for 
the last hundred years, in so far as it has been met at all, 
by the Sunday Schools. We have now come to realize, 
and none of us more clearly than the Sunday School 
leaders themselves, that the work of the Sunday School 
must be greatly widened and the school itself transformed 


So THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 

if it is to be an adequate school of the Church under the 
conditions of the twentieth century. Fortunately, that 
is just what has been taking place for the past dozen years 
or more. We are now in the midst of a great movement 
which is gradually transforming the Sunday Schools and 
also extending their influence and service into week-day 
hours. There is good reason to hope that the Church 
may now make of them effective instruments of moral 
and religious education. 

2. Fostering Adult Growth in Christian Experience .— 
The mind of man, happily, is not as limited in capacity 
for growth as his body. Full physical stature is generally 
reached by the end of the teens; the mind may keep on 
growing and expanding as long as the passing years bring 
increase of experience. 

This is not to deny that individuals differ in native ca¬ 
pacity and that their endowments set certain limits within 
which the development of each will move. There is a 
large measure of truth, moreover, in William James’ 
assertion that character is set in most of us before thirty, 
and that we have at that age already acquired most of 
the new ideas that we shall ever possess. Yet it was 
this same William James who called the attention of 
psychologists to the higher levels of latent energy which 
remain untapped by most men and are reached by others 
but rarely; and he was himself an outstanding example 
of a mind that never ceased growing and never lost its 
eagerness to receive and power to appraise new experi¬ 
ences and ideas. A year or more before his death he 
reported that he found faith in immortality growing 
more dear to him because he felt that he was “just getting 
fit to live.” 

So the educational responsibility of the Church does 
not end with the passing of childhood and the coming of 
maturity. As long as it remains possible for an indi¬ 
vidual to go further in that integrated growth of intel- 


EDUCATIONAL FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 51 

ligence, feeling, and will which constitutes the develop¬ 
ment of character, the Church must seek to stimulate and 
guide that growth. Through special classes for adults, 
through preaching and worship, through the various con¬ 
tacts of the pastoral relation, and through the forms of 
active service in which it enlists them, the Church un¬ 
dertakes the further training of these folk, their upbuild¬ 
ing in character, and the cultivation of their latent moral 
and spiritual powers. That Church is a failure which 
is simply an association of the contented, who gather 
at stated times for the mere repetition in sermon, ritual, 
or experience-meeting of matters long since familiar. 
The ideas of discovery, of learning, of growth in knowl¬ 
edge and power are fundamental in the Christian con¬ 
ception of life. When a Church’s members cease to learn 
and to grow, it is in danger of losing the Holy Spirit, 
who came to teach us all things. 

In danger of losing the Holy Spirit, we repeat. For 
what we have referred to, on the human side, as the 
growth and development of character, is to be described, 
on the divine side, as the work of the regenerating, en¬ 
lightening, and sanctifying Spirit of God. The correlate 
of man’s discovery is God’s revelation; the correlate of 
learning, God’s teaching; the correlate of human growth, 
God’s nurturing care. The work of the Spirit in a human 
life is not an episode merely, resulting in a finished, 
static product; it is rather a constant dynamic, inspiring, 
strengthening, and teaching throughout the whole of life. 
Character is not bestowed all at once, as a possession 
thereafter to be retained intact and just kept polished; 
God makes it possible, rather, for His children to gain 
character increasingly through service in continued fel¬ 
lowship with one another and Him. This fellowship, this 
grace, the Church undertakes to mediate and foster. 

Such developing Christian character is not a matter of 
habit and custom merely. It is motivated by intelligible 
convictions concerning God, man, and the universe. The 


52 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 

growth of a Christian is thus in part intellectual, and the 
Christian Church has always rightly considered instruction 
in doctrine to be a vital and fundamental part of its 
teaching work. 

There have been many times, indeed, when a wrong 
emphasis has been laid upon this aspect of the Church’s 
teaching, times when moral and religious education has 
been conceived in narrow intellectualistic terms as little 
more than instruction in the Bible, creeds, or ritual 
forms, when assent to some particular formulation of 
doctrine was made a prior condition of admission to 
fellowship and led to the neglect of the weightier matters 
of love, justice, and mercy. It would be an equally great 
mistake, however, to draw such opposite conclusions as 
that doctrine is profitless; that religion does not lend itself 
to intellectual formulation; that faith is independent of 
reason; that it does not really matter what one believes, 
provided he lives a good life. 

The error of intellectualism in religion lies not so much 
in over-concern with doctrine as in failure to grasp and 
maintain the true relation of doctrine to life and experi¬ 
ence. Jesus put it rightly: “If any man will do His will, 
he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God.” 
The natural order, psychologically and pedagogically, is 
not that true belief comes first and right living is then 
simply an application or expression of that belief. The 
fact is rather that we first live and act, then understand. 
Christian doctrine is an interpretation of Christian ex¬ 
perience. Insight and conviction are more the fruit 
than the pre-condition of right life and action. This 
is the truth involved in Anselm’s principle that faith 
is prior to knowledge. Religious education begins not 
with indoctrination but with the experience of fellowship 
in Christian purposes and activities. Doctrines follow 
as an explanation of life’s purposes and motives and 
an interpretation of its realities and values. 

The Church would be untrue to its teaching mission, 


EDUCATIONAL FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 53 

however, were it to fail to interpret the experience it 
mediates. If the Christian life be left dependent upon 
habit, custom, and the contagion of fellowship merely, 
it will not only fail to realize the richer and more mean¬ 
ingful Christian experience which is open to an intelligent 
faith, but it is left in jeopardy of passing circumstance. 
It can be placed upon a sound and permanent basis only 
when the individual intelligently grasps its fundamental 
ideas and principles. Only a reasonable faith can in 
the long run be depended upon to endure, amid the 
changing conditions and increasing complexities of life. 
Even Roman Catholicism, with its large degree of re¬ 
liance upon habit, fellowship, and sacramental grace, and 
with its appeal to a type of faith which seems to Protes¬ 
tants to be relatively unintelligent, takes the utmost pains 
to inculcate the dogmas which form the intellectual sub¬ 
stratum of its system of life and belief, and to interpret 
the experience of its devotees in terms of these dogmas. 
Protestantism, with its freedom of individual judgment, 
needs even more to care for the intellectual aspects of 
moral and religious education, that its followers may be 
fit to stand on their own feet before God and man, know¬ 
ing what they believe and why. 

3. Creating Christian Public Opinion. —The task of 
bringing individuals into conscious and intelligent Chris¬ 
tian discipleship, of developing Christian personalities, is 
always the basic part of the Church’s teaching work. 
But the development of a Christian personality takes 
place always in a social environment. Persons exist and 
have meaning only in social relationships. There is no 
such thing as a person dwelling in a social vacuum. To 
grow morally and spiritually means to enter into fuller 
fellowship with others, and to realize increasingly in one’s 
relations with them the divine ideal revealed to us by 
Jesus Christ. There is no fellowship with God the Father 
that does not in itself involve living with His children in 


54 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 

the spirit of love, which is of the very nature of God. 
“He that loveth not knoweth not God.” 

This means that it is a vital and direct concern of the 
Church that all the social conditions and arrangements 
in which men live should be such as to develop the spirit 
of love and goodwill, and so minister to moral and spiritual 
growth. All the relations of men to each other in indus¬ 
try and business; all the contacts between the races; all 
civic and political affairs; all relations between nations as 
organized groups—all these, as well as the life of the home 
and one’s circle of friends, are, in the Christian’s faith, 
to be organized according to the mind of Christ. For 
all this social environment is having a constant effect, for 
good or ill, upon the very development of personality 
itself. That this is so has long been recognized in the 
Church’s foreign missionary work, where we long ago 
discovered that if we are to succeed in building Christian 
character we must break down prevalent unchristian social 
practices, such as polygamy or the opium traffic, and must 
develop an economic basis for the support of Christian 
standards of living. It must be equally recognized in all 
the teaching work of the Church at home that wholesome 
social conditions minister to character, and that unwhole¬ 
some conditions are an inevitable handicap. The fact 
is that the social environment is itself a powerful, though 
indirect, educator, and is all the while re-enforcing or 
thwarting the efforts which the Church is making to train 
Christian personality. 

All this inherited social structure, our economic and 
industrial and political arrangements, are determined and 
supported by that complex thing which we call public 
opinion—the general point of view and attitude of the 
social group as a whole. If, then, we are to have a Chris¬ 
tian social life we must have a Christian public opinion. 
To secure this is probably the most difficult phase of the 
Church’s teaching work in the present day. 


EDUCATIONAL FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 55 

Involved in this task is the necessity of making a 
concerted impact on the public mind. For public opinion 
is not changed simply by winning individuals separately 
one by one to a new point of view. Public opinion is, in 
considerable degree, an organic thing—a group product 
which would not exist except for the interrelations of in¬ 
dividuals in their group life. It is something more than 
the mere sum of individual purposes and attitudes. By 
their interplay types of feeling and thought are developed 
which the individual alone would never create. 

To influence public opinion, therefore, there must be 
a great movement of thought and feeling which can affect 
the mass of the people at the same time, and so be strong 
enough to sweep away the inertia of inherited arrange¬ 
ments, and set the community to rebuilding along better 
lines. 

In order to achieve such a concerted impact, it becomes 
necessary for the Church to lay hold for Christianity of 
great popular agencies like the daily press through which 
public opinion is constantly being molded and sustained. 
The need for this is clearer still when one realizes that 
there are millions of men who are not now coming, and 
so far as we can see are not likely to come, under the 
immediate influence of the Church’s regular agencies for 
teaching the individual—the Sunday School, the week¬ 
day school, the pulpit, the Christian college, or other media 
of direct religious instruction. If we are to reach them 
at all, we must do so indirectly through such an instrument 
as the daily press, which, consciously or unconsciously, is 
influencing all the people all the time. 

And to apply Christianity to social problems of the 
present day demands, as an essential prerequisite, patient 
and skillful research. For although the Christian princi¬ 
ples themselves are clear and simple, the application of 
them to many of the social and international questions of 
our time is extraordinarily difficult. The average Chris¬ 
tian simply does not know enough about the economic 


56 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 

structure of society or about the relations of nations to 
each other in the modern world to be able to decide, in 
many concrete cases of industrial controversy or national 
policy, what will work most effectively toward the Chris¬ 
tian goal. The spirit of goodwill, though absolutely basic 
and fundamental, is by itself not sufficient. There must 
be also a clear understanding of how that goodwill can 
be so applied practically as to secure the ends which Chris¬ 
tians seek. 

To provide agencies of study and research, which will 
examine with thoroughness and skill the difficult questions 
of the application of Christianity to all phases of our con¬ 
temporary social life, in order that there may be a grow¬ 
ing understanding of what Christianity involves for human 
living together, is an indispensable, and too much neg¬ 
lected, part of the teaching program fo the Church. 

4. Training for Leadership .—The maintenance of in¬ 
stitutions of higher education, for the sake of training 
men and women for places of leadership in service to 
the Church and society, is a part of the Church’s teaching 
responsibility without which none of its other work can 
be permanently maintained. Unless there are those who 
are qualified to fill places of initiative and guidance, we 
cannot hope for any large achievement. What the Church 
is to be will depend chiefly on its leadership. Both its 
own self-perpetuation and its service to the community 
call not simply for the religious education of the children 
and the members of the Church but also for the dis¬ 
tinctive training required by those who are to carry 
on the ministry of teaching the rank and file. 

That the Church was interested in higher education in 
America long before the State is a clear fact of history. 
The colleges arose chiefly from the concern of the Church 
for an educated ministry. With the development, how¬ 
ever, of the nation along industrial and commercial 
lines, and with the multiplying realms of professional 


EDUCATIONAL FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 57 

service, the college gradually departed from this early 
tradition. When the State itself assumed a responsibility 
for higher education, it frankly omitted religion from the 
curriculum as it was omitted from the public school. 
The most that the State university has felt itself called 
upon to do, under the principle of the separation of 
Church and State, has been to give courses in the Bible 
as literature and in religious developments as history— 
not courses definitely designed to teach religion itself. 

The Church has met the situation in some measure 
through voluntary agencies like the Young Men’s and 
Young Women’s Christian Associations, and more re¬ 
cently by “university pastors” and occasional foundations 
for definite instruction in religion, cooperating with the 
university, but it is admitted without argument that the 
university today is contributing to our religious life 
only a meager body of leadership. 

Yet such surveys as have been made indicate that 
today more students of the leading denominations go 
to State institutions than to church colleges. A Church 
would be fatally weak in its teaching program if it left 
these students without positive religious teaching just 
at the very period when their new knowledge of science 
is sharply testing their old religious conceptions. Now, 
if ever, they need educational influences which will help 
them to interpret the world of their enlarging knowledge 
in religious terms. Through the work of the local Church 
in the university town, through voluntary courses of study 
outside the curriculum, through supplementary instruc¬ 
tion in cooperating schools of religion or Church founda¬ 
tions, or through other means, the Church must find the 
way of giving advanced teaching in the Christian religion 
to this great body of students who are to occupy places 
of leadership in the world’s life. 

In the institutions under the Church’s own control 
there has been the opportunity, of course, for the Church 
to direct its attention definitely to a type of training which 


58 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 

would both raise up well-equipped leaders for the min¬ 
istry, religious education, and missionary service, and 
which would also send out all its graduates with a re¬ 
ligious training that would fit them, as laymen, to render 
intelligent service to the Kingdom of God. That this is 
the distinctive function of the so-called “denominational 
college” is clear. If it has no special mission for re¬ 
ligious teaching different from that of the State-con- 
trolled institution, it is difficult to see why it should con¬ 
tinue to exist. In many institutions this function has 
been creditably fulfilled and from them have come the 
great majority of the Church’s leaders. This central 
purpose of the Christian college, however, is not always 
so apparent. It frequently does not succeed much better 
than the tax-supported institutions in making religion a 
great and integral part of the educational program. The 
general atmosphere may be favorable to religion but there 
is crying need for more systematic training for Christian 
leadership. The curriculum often differs very little from 
that of the liberal arts college in the State university, the 
teaching of religion being given a relatively subordinate 
place; courses in Bible, in Church history, in Christian 
ethics, in religious education, in missions, being too few 
in number and too poorly provided for. More conscious 
effort is also necessary to provide an interpretation of 
the curriculum as a whole—its science, philosophy, and 
literature—which will develop a Christian conception of 
the world and of human destiny. 

The work of the theological seminary, as the profes¬ 
sional training school where the Church’s leaders receive 
their specialized preparation for life service, is obviously 
the crown of the Church’s teaching. That this institu¬ 
tion should really train men for the practical carrying 
on of the Church’s mission to our community life, and 
should not be satisfied simply to give formal academic 
instruction in certain traditional departments of knowl¬ 
edge, is of crucial importance. Unless there come from 


EDUCATIONAL FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 59 

the seminaries an adequate body of men fully qualified 
to assume places of successful leadership we cannot hope 
that any part of the Church’s educational responsibility 
will be properly discharged. The whole program of the 
Church stands or falls with its work in the theological 
seminary. 

The teaching work of the Church as we have thus 
analyzed it—the Christian nurture of children and youth, 
the fostering of the moral and spiritual growth of those 
who have passed beyond childhood, the interpretation in 
intellectual terms of our common Christian experience, 
the building up of a Christian public opinion concerning 
our social organization, and the preparation of those who 
are to serve as the needed leaders in all the Church’s 
work—is an indispensable condition of the perpetuation 
and enrichment of the Church’s own life. It is more. It 
is an essential part, the essential part, of the Church’s 
service to the world. 





































































,1 














PART II 

HOW THE CHURCH SHOULD TEACH 































































































CHAPTER III 


TEACHING THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION TO 

THE CHILD 

The failure to plan our teaching with constant refer¬ 
ence to the present needs of the person taught has been 
one of the most fatal weaknesses in the Church's educa¬ 
tional work. Just what the development of the individual 
at a given period requires in the way of religious train¬ 
ing, just what purposes we desire to achieve at each 
period, just what will be needed then to secure his ad¬ 
vance to the next stage and just how this is to be pro¬ 
vided—these questions the Church at large has not seri¬ 
ously enough considered. We have been thinking so 
much of the subject matter that we have not thought of 
the person for whose sake all our teaching is carried on. 

We are discovering now that the first requisite for 
teaching is to understand that life means growth, de¬ 
velopment, adaptation, and that we must, accordingly, 
keep in constant and vital contact with the actual facts 
of child experience. The Church cannot ignore the time 
element and expect immediately results not yet attain¬ 
able. On the other hand, it must not lag behind the 
child's enlarging life and leave him without the assist¬ 
ance needed as a new stage comes. It must patiently 
interpret and reinterpret Christian faith and Christian 
standards of conduct m terms of present need. It must 
provide the individual with the means for a Christian 
interpretation of his changing experience, with the spirit¬ 
ual resources for living now in accordance with the 
Christian ideals, with incentives for making a Christian 
response to new situations as they come. 

63 


64 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 

This fundamental principle of making the child, rather 
than the Biblical material, the center of interest and 
building up the program of religious education on the 
basis of his developing activities and needs, has all too 
long been ignored. The continuing use of a Uniform 
Sunday School Lesson System, providing the same sub¬ 
ject matter for children, youth, and adults, is only one of 
many illustrations of the need for serious study at this 
point. 

An understanding of the development of the pupil’s 
distinctive experiences, interests, and capacities is of 
such central importance in any effective teaching and is 
still so little appreciated in many quarters in the Church 
that we shall undertake to sketch briefly the progress of 
the individual’s life from childhood to maturity, dis¬ 
covering the determining factors and the significant fea¬ 
tures at each new stage of his continuous experience. 
Upon the basis of these we may undertake to analyze the 
problem for the teacher at this period, to define more 
specifically the aim in teaching; and, in accordance with 
the aim which we set for ourselves at successive stages, 
to suggest the content and method which are essential for 
its realization. 

I. Infancy and Upward 

(a) The First Three Years; Pre-school Period .—A 
moment’s reflection will convince one of the immense 
significance of early infancy. During these first years are 
acquired the most essential kinds of skill. One learns to 
walk and to talk and to accommodate himself to a mode 
of life and conduct. The amount of muscular coordina¬ 
tion and control involved in these accomplishments and 
the number of adjustments required in the nerve centers 
is simply enormous. Less obvious, but not less important 
and fundamental, are the attitudes and habits which are 
being formed at this time. It is not too much to say that 


TEACHING CHRISTIAN RELIGION TO CHILD 65 

the whole “set” of character or disposition may be very 
largely determined by the treatment and teaching of these 
years. 

The Church, however, does not come into direct con¬ 
tact with lives at this stage. What it does for these ages 
must be done largely through the home itself, through the 
parents and older brothers and sisters, by making its in¬ 
fluence felt indirectly through loftier ideals for the family 
and through more wholesome home surroundings. What, 
precisely, should the Church seek to accomplish for little 
children during these earliest years? To develop a family 
atmosphere which will lead them to think of God as really 
and constantly present in their home surroundings; to 
assume toward Him a natural and responsive attitude, 
and toward others an attitude consistent with this thought 
of God. 

How shall we make God real to little children? Jesus 
taught men to call God “Father,” and this is at once the 
name and the relationship most appropriate for childhood 
and most fitting for home experience. But if the word 
“Father” is to have meaning, as applied to God, it must 
first have a similar—even if a lesser—meaning, as applied 
to an earthly parent. If the little child is to gain any 
conception of God as a real Being, possessing attributes 
such as the Christian associates with the name of God, 
he must first experience in his own parents and in the 
atmosphere of his own home such qualities as justice, 
tenderness, strength, fidelity, and high purpose. This, of 
course, involves on the part of the parents a vital con¬ 
sciousness of God. The home atmosphere must be per¬ 
vaded by the divine Presence; all the familiar and inti¬ 
mate home relationships must be tender; the attitudes of 
good-will and cooperation, habitual, not only toward other 
members of the household but towards domestic helpers, 
neighbors, tradesmen, and all others with whom the fam¬ 
ily comes in contact. 


66 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 


The means by which personal communion with God is 
recognized and maintained will be as much a part of the 
family program as are those acts which have as their 
purpose the cultivation of friendly relations with people. 
Whether a time is regularly set apart for family worship, 
or the hour at rising or at bedtime is utilized for prayer 
and story, or other methods followed, Christian parents 
will find some way of revealing to their children their 
own sense of dependence upon God, their need of guid¬ 
ance by His Spirit, and their purpose to do His will. 

The control which God is to exercise over the lives of 
men should also be exemplified by the kind of control 
which parents exercise over their children. If a little 
child is to think of God as a God of justice he must learn 
what justice is through his experience of home discipline. 
It goes without saying that such laws as are laid down 
should be inflexible and their penalties inevitable—as is 
the case with the so-called laws of nature. But for this 
very reason they must be clearly laws which apply equally 
to all, and are obviously for the good of all; not arbitrary, 
tyrannical, nor capricious. Much has been said and writ¬ 
ten of the physiological importance of early training in 
habits of eating, sleeping, playing, and exercise. It is of 
no less significance for morals and for religion that regu¬ 
larity in the daily routine of living should be insisted 
upon, and it can be developed in the child only as it is a 
part of the family regimen. 

It appears, then, that the task of the Church, so far 
as these littlest people are concerned, consists in training 
parents to exemplify toward their children the traits of a 
divine parenthood, to maintain in the home an atmosphere 
that is thoroughly Christian and a spirit that is mutually 
helpful and cooperative. It is impossible to overempha¬ 
size the importance of this task. In a very real sense 
it is fundamental to all subsequent Christian teaching. 
Indeed, the whole message of Christianity may be 


TEACHING CHRISTIAN RELIGION TO CHILD 67 

summed up in terms of home experience, and its mis¬ 
sionary purpose may be said to contemplate simply the 
indefinite extension of the home circle to include all man¬ 
kind and the assumption toward all men of those atti¬ 
tudes which are first learned amid home relationships. 
God as our Father, the whole world as his family, all men 
our brothers—such is the teaching of Jesus. Unless, 
however, one has first an experience of such attitudes and 
relationships in his own home life, he will not readily 
comprehend the wider implications of the Christian mes¬ 
sage. 

Here lies a wide field of service, as yet scarcely touched 
by the Church. The Church must come to realize that 
most young people who become parents today have had 
scarcely any previous instruction as to the meaning of 
parenthood and have little or no realization of the tre¬ 
mendous responsibilities involved in the bearing and 
rearing of children. It is difficult to provide any adequate 
preparation for these duties in advance. But from the 
time when young parents are first confronted by the prob¬ 
lem of home-making, there ought to be no cessation in 
the Church’s program of home education in religion. 
This program should include direct instruction to the 
parents themselves as to how they may deepen their own 
religious life. There should be instruction regarding 
Christian ideals for the family, the interpretation of home 
life and experience, the ways of creating and deepening 
the religious atmosphere of the home, the conduct of 
home worship, the meeting of problems of discipline. 
Scripture selections for personal reading are needed, pray¬ 
ers for personal and family use, stories and prayers for 
children’s use, suggestions as to the aims and opportuni¬ 
ties for home instruction in religion. At present, com¬ 
paratively little that is offered for home use has been 
prepared with the thought of securing, through the par¬ 
ents, the systematic and orderly development of a Chris- 


68 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 


tian consciousness and of Christian attitudes and habits 
in the children. 1 

(b) The Kindergarten Period; Ages 4 and 5.—Prior 
to the age of 5, often by the fourth year, churches are 
able to secure the attendance of children at Sunday School 
and thus directly supplement, or in some instances cor¬ 
rect, what they may gain through parental and home in¬ 
fluence. Where this is the case, the Church should regard 
this beginners’ section of its school as an extension of 
the home, a place where a group of people are learning 
to live together in the Christian way. The teaching 
should consist of stories, simple scenes, in which are 
reflected the experiences of home and its surroundings. 
Through its familiar imagery the story makes its appeal 
to the child’s interest, he feels himself at home in its 
atmosphere, identifies himself with its characters, and 
unconsciously assumes the attitudes which the story 
suggests. Thus the meaning of present experience is 
interpreted to him and at the same time a basis is laid 
for future conduct. 

What is needed at this time is a vivid picturing of a 
few fundamental relationships: the relationship of parent 
to child and of child to parent; the relationship of God, 
as parent, to His children, and of children to God; the 
relationship of children in the home to each other and 
to the world of nature about them. A few stories, care¬ 
fully chosen and assimilated will be more effective than 
a larger number hurriedly passed over. The important 
thing is the thoroughness with which a relationship is 
apprehended or an attitude confirmed by conscious choice 
and frequent practice. 

To outline the materials which should be used in 


*As an example of material prepared with this aim in view, 
see Danielson, “Object Lessons for the Cradle Roll”; and Rankin, 
“Letters to Parents,” to be used in connection with “A Course 
for Beginners in Religious Education.” 



TEACHING CHRISTIAN RELIGION TO CHILD 69 

carrying out this purpose is beyond the scope of the 
present study. A few concrete illustrations must serve 
as typical examples. 

What can picture more beautifully the relation of par¬ 
ent to child and child to parent than the story of the baby 
Moses? Here is represented tender mother-care, pro¬ 
viding protection for the helpless and trustful little one 
in the face of danger. Other aspects of the parental rela¬ 
tion may be set forth through stories showing mother-love 
supplying food and clothing or showing the care that 
mother-birds and other animals bestow upon their young. 

In a similar manner may be exemplified the relation of 
God to His children; His provision for our needs through 
the gifts of grain and fruit. This teaching is particularly 
appropriate during the autumn months when it serves to 
give a religious interpretation to the experience of the 
harvest time. The Thanksgiving festival suggests the 
appropriate response to God’s goodness, with its emphasis 
upon the thought of gratitude and its suggestion of shar¬ 
ing as the proper expression of gratitude. The spring¬ 
time, with its awakening life, its gardens, birds, and flow¬ 
ers, finds a natural connection with the Easter story. God 
is back of all life, in the sunshine and the rain, the grow¬ 
ing grass and trees and flowers, and in His great work of 
quickening the world into newness of life we may all help 
Him by helping His creatures to live more abundantly. 

The stories of the Christ-child, together with the Christ¬ 
mas atmosphere, emphasize the thought of kindness and 
love, of family devotion, and generous giving. Around 
the stories of the boyhood of Jesus cluster many sugges¬ 
tions of thoughtful and obedient conduct and happy home 
relations. The beautiful picture of Jesus blessing the 
children suggests His love for them and in turn awakens 
in them a love for Him and a sense of intimate relation¬ 
ship, as between the members of God’s family. The 
stories of His kind acts and constant helpfulness become 
standards of conduct for all God’s children. 


70 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 

Stories of children in other homes, in Japan, India, 
Italy, or Africa, are full of novelty and interest, and pre¬ 
pare the way for the larger conception of the family of 
God. These, too, are seen as our brothers with whom 
we are to share the gifts of our Heavenly Father. 

Interspersed among these great lessons, as occasion may 
require, should be stories setting forth the attitudes and 
qualities indispensable in the children of God’s family: 
His children must learn to tell the truth, to control their 
tempers, to be brave—not timid—to take care of them¬ 
selves, to play happily together, to be loyal to home and 
faithful to home duties. 

So far as practicable the stories may be selected from 
the Bible. It should be kept in mind, however, that com¬ 
paratively few of the Bible stories deal specifically with 
the problems of the little child’s home life. They need 
to be supplemented by other stories, such as stories of 
animal life, imaginative stories in which the forces of 
nature are impersonated, and stories of every-day life in 
the home. 

The lessons may be put into practice immediately in the 
class session, in which for teaching purposes the mem¬ 
bers of the class are still “at home.” The teacher should 
be a “motherly” person. The atmosphere of the room, 
its furnishings, its discipline, its relationships, should be 
those of a Christian home. The pictures, hung low, should 
be simple scenes portraying a bit of nature or family life. 
Songs, games, prayers, conversation—all pervaded by the 
same spirit of kindliness and good-will—serve to deepen 
the impression made by the story. Letters to parents, 
leaflets containing stories for home reading, and picture- 
books which the children make for father and mother, 
brother or sister, or neighbor, are convenient ways for 
giving concrete expression to kindly thought and feeling. 

By such means much can be done, even for children 
of parents who are careless or indifferent toward their 
responsibilities as religious teachers, to awaken a con- 


TEACHING CHRISTIAN RELIGION TO CHILD 71 

sciousness of God, to correct false notions of God, and 
to provide means for the normal and natural expression 
of religious feeling. It is clear, however, that the Church 
can never hope, nor should parents expect, to supply 
through the Sunday School an influence potent enough 
to counteract the constant, daily impact of parental ex¬ 
ample and home surroundings. At best, it can only sup¬ 
plement and enhance their effect; it can never be a 
substitute for what parents, and only parents, can do. 

2. Earlier Childhood: Ages 6-8 

The first radical adjustment, in the lives of most chil¬ 
dren, is that which is made necessary by going to school. 
It is an epoch-making experience and automatically gives 
rise to some serious problems. However much the 
authorities may strive to model the school upon the pat¬ 
tern of the home, it is inevitable that the pupil must find 
himself in an environment that is strange. He must 
adjust himself to a considerable number of children, who 
are themselves in new surroundings, seeking each his own 
satisfaction, yet all obliged to conform to certain regula¬ 
tions that are new, and to yield allegiance to an unaccus¬ 
tomed authority. New people, new scenes, new duties, 
a new routine with new interests, and all presided over by 
a new person in control—these are sufficient to create for 
the child a new world in which he must find his place and 
which he must somehow harmonize with his home-world. 

How will this sudden impulsion into a new world affect 
the child’s religious faith and his behavior? He is 
brought face to face with a problem. Not that he realizes 
it as such, much less that he is able to make any attempt 
at analyzing it. But in a more or less vague way he is 
conscious of it and feels in consequence a certain sense 
of mental strain. This strain is due to uncertainty, in 
view of the sudden expansion of environment. How far 
are the experiences acquired in the old environment of 


72 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 

the home valid, as assumptions, in the new environment 
of the school? Father and mother have been left behind. 
The teacher stands in the place of parent. Is God also 
left behind? There may be little in the school program 
to suggest His presence. Little is said about Him. There 
is seldom any attempt to interpret child experience in 
terms of God. There is little in the conduct of fellow 
schoolmates, impelled as they all are by self-interest, to 
suggest that they are children of God. 

There is similar uncertainty regarding the standards of 
behavior which the child had learned to recognize in the 
home. How far are these applicable to the new relation¬ 
ships of school? Conflict of purposes arises, as between 
the pupils, or between the pupils and the teacher. It may 
even be that the standards of the school seem inconsistent 
with those of the child’s own home. How are these con¬ 
flicting experiences to be reconciled, how are these two 
diverse worlds to be unified, so that the child may feel 
that they are but differing aspects of one harmonious, 
self-consistent world, in which the same standards of 
behavior are to be everywhere observed? 

The aim of the Church during the earlier period of 
childhood — until, say, about 8 years of age—is to help 
the child to strengthen and confirm the religious ideas, 
attitudes, and forms of conduct he had begun to hold 
and to practice in his earlier life in the home and to carry 
these over into the new world of his school experience. 
More specifically, to deepen his sense of relationship with 
God as a loving Father and present Companion, with whom 
he holds a natural intercourse; to stimulate the feeling of 
reverence, affection, and trust; to cultivate the spirit of 
loyal cooperation with parent, and now also with teacher; 
to strengthen attitudes of good-will and helpfulness 
toward members of the family, and now likewise toward 
schoolmates; to develop a sense of responsibility for one’s 
share in the daily routine and burden of the family, and 
also for one’s share in school enterprises and in those of 


TEACHING CHRISTIAN RELIGION TO CHILD 73 

the community at large which have for their purpose the 
meeting of human need. 

The teaching at this time will be closely akin to that of 
the previous period in that it will make use of story 
material in which are pictured the relationships of the 
child—to God, to parent, to brother and sijfcter, and 
neighbor—but the scope of these relationships will include 
a wider company of people. The basis of selection of 
material will be the particular problems which the child 
is now facing. The stories chosen may be grouped so 
as to set forth, in their sequence, a particular relation¬ 
ship in various aspects and under differing conditions. 
Or they may embody problems suggesting alternatives 
of conduct and requiring reflection before a course of 
action is decided upon; or they may be grouped about 
an outstanding experience, such as the celebration of a 
festival season like Thanksgiving, Christmas, or Easter, 
so as to bring out its religious meaning and suggest an 
appropriate attitude or act. The stories may now have 
more of movement and dynamic quality than those used 
in the earlier period, which needed to be simple, scenic, 
and static. 

How, for example, shall we help the child to expand 
his notion of God, so that he may still think of God as 
present in this new school-world, caring for him and sur¬ 
rounding him with His protection? How shall we sug¬ 
gest to him that reverence, trust, gratitude, and obedience 
are still right attitudes toward God? Have we stories 
anywhere which picture the expansion of the idea of God 
as a spiritual discovery? 

The story of Jacob’s dream at Bethel is in certain 
respects an almost exact counterpart of the little child’s 
experience. In his loneliness and fear he imagines that 
he has gone beyond the reach of all-protecting care. In 
his troubled sleep he has a dream and on awaking makes 
a surprising discovery: “Surely God is in this place and 
I knew it not!” Joyfully and reverently he proceeds on 


74 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 

his way, confident now that in this world of his new 
experience God is present as really as before. A similar 
thought is presented in the story of Elisha, who, in time 
of danger, revealed to his frightened servant the unseen 
hosts whom God had sent to protect them. God’s pro¬ 
viding care for His wandering people is set forth in the 
stories of the manna, the quails, the water gushing forth 
from the rock. Jacob, Elisha, Moses, David, not only 
discovered God as a present helper; they trusted Him in 
each new situation and went confidently forward without 
fear. 

Again, there are stories picturing the care of a parent 
under unusual conditions, such as absence from home. 
Hagar is the embodiment of maternal care and affection, 
reenforced by divine help. The story of His mother’s 
anxiety for the boy Jesus, left behind in the temple, is a 
beautiful example of parental solicitude. The mother 
of the boy Samuel made him a visit each year at the 
sanctuary where he was receiving his training, bringing 
with her a little robe which her loving hands had made. 
On the other hand, we have, in such stories as those of 
Joseph and Jesus, typical instances of filial devotion. 

Then there are the relationships between the children 
themselves. We wish to develop the spirit of kindness, 
the habit of helpfulness and generous sharing, respect for 
the rights of others, cooperation in play and in work, not 
only toward those in their own homes but toward school¬ 
mates and playmates. For this the little child needs 
models, or standards of conduct, in vivid story form. 
Abraham’s generous treatment of Lot in offering him the 
first choice of the land, Rebekah’s courtesy to the tired 
servant, the thoughtfulness of the little Hebrew maid for 
her sick master, the hospitality of the widow who shared 
her meal with the prophet, or the one who built an extra 
room for the prophet in her house—all these and many 
others are instances of the spirit of brotherhood in its 
wider application. The attitude of Jesus is always that 


TEACHING CHRISTIAN RELIGION TO CHILD 75 

of the ideal Son and Brother, and His sense of kinship 
is not confined to those who are within His family circle: 
“Whosoever shall do the will of my Father who is in 
heaven, he is my brother, and sister, and mother.” So 
we find in the Gospels examples of His constant help¬ 
fulness, like the feeding of the five thousand (in which 
a little boy participated by sharing his lunch) ; or the 
quieting of the storm, or the story-telling by the lakeside, 
or the welcoming of little children—instances which bring 
Him very near to the experiences of childhood and sug¬ 
gest a great variety of ways of being kind. 

Little children everywhere—Italian children, Polish 
children, French, Belgian, and American children, little 
boys and girls whose skins are yellow, brown, or black 
and whose tongues speak strange languages—should be 
brought within the circle of acquaintanceship or friendly 
interest and, so far as possible, in such a way as to stimu¬ 
late the impulse to share with them all the good gifts of 
God which we enjoy. 

The place where this teaching is given will resemble 
both home and school. In atmosphere and program there 
will be much that is familiar and homelike. The teacher 
will be approachable, sympathetic, motherly. God will 
still be “Father,” His presence will be taken for granted, 
prayers will be offered, and songs will be sung. There 
will also be some resemblance to school surroundings, 
with a program a little more formal than at home. As in 
school, so here there will be other children of about the 
same age. There will be pictures and blackboards and 
tables and low chairs, things to make together and things 
to discuss. 

The purpose of lesson material is to set before the 
child a picture of an ideal bit of experience which is on 
the plan of his own present problems. Through listen¬ 
ing to a story, by imagination the pupil seems to see 
himself in surroundings which offer a kind of parallel 
to his own experience. This picture of an ideal situa- 


76 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 

tion suggests to him his own conduct under like circum¬ 
stances. In order that the picture may be associated in 
his mind and memory with muscular and mental effort, 
there should also be provided, where possible, an oppor¬ 
tunity for the child actually to put into practice of his 
own choice the forms of conduct he has seen pictured. 
Much time will be given, therefore, to thinking out to¬ 
gether ways of meeting a difficulty, or arriving at a 
decision that would be pleasing to God. There will be 
group games, group songs, and especially group enter¬ 
prises, in which religious thought and feeling find ex¬ 
pression. The great days in the Christian year, Christ¬ 
mas, Easter, Thanksgiving, and patriotic holidays, will be 
utilized as opportunities for arousing religious feeling, 
or for turning such feeling already aroused into forms 
of appropriate and helpful activity. Occasions for wider 
helpfulness which are constantly arising, such as the 
need for famine relief, the support of a children’s hos¬ 
pital or a kindergarten, the provision of an outing in the 
country for orphans, the sending of flowers to the sick, 
the pure-milk-for-babies campaign, will readily enlist the 
sympathetic cooperation of children of this age and have 
direct educational value. 

3. Later Childhood: Ages 9 to ii 

The line between earlier and later childhood is an 
imaginary line, not sharply marked in the child’s con¬ 
sciousness as is the experience of the first day at school. 
Nevertheless, at about the end of the eighth, or early in 
the ninth, year close observers will discern that a change 
is gradually taking place. For three years the child has 
been going to school. His physical surroundings and his 
mental horizon have been extended. Geography has now 
opened to him the door to an environment wider than 
home and school. Arithmetic has given the sense of num¬ 
bers and standards of measurement. Reading has put at 


TEACHING CHRISTIAN RELIGION TO CHILD 77 

his disposal the thoughts of others. A vast new world is 
inviting exploration. 

With this new realm of potentially thrilling experience 
inviting him, with an accession of physical vigor and 
recently acquired knowledge, the child is urged forward 
with irresistible impulse to enter, examine, collect, and 
experiment. The world which attracts most strongly is 
the world beyond home and school—the world to be 
roamed through on expeditions of adventure, or lived 
through in the stories of great exploits, or investigated in 
close study at first hand, or manipulated in original experi¬ 
ment. Lacking, at first, the necessary standards of meas¬ 
urement or any adequate sense of value, the first impulse 
is to gather up and appropriate as his own everything 
that comes in his way, without trying to arrange or 
classify. It is a time of acquisition, of restless activity, 
of insatiable hunger for experience. 

This new world is a social world. The boy or girl does 
not wander through it alone, but in the company of other 
boys or girls. Together they put their questions to nature 
or investigate the habits of wild animals and birds. It 
is a world of play, in which they feel a delicious sense of 
freedom; a world that is immediately interesting and 
worth while, experience of which is an end in itself to 
be enjoyed for its own sake. While engaged in acquiring 
mastery of their physical surroundings, in amassing 
knowledge of things in relation to each other and them¬ 
selves, they are also stimulating and vying with each 
other in feats of strength, agility, and skill. There is 
satisfaction not only in accomplishment and mastery, but 
also in the approval expressed by one’s peers. On the 
other hand, the achievement of one member of the group 
becomes a standard for the others to imitate, a goal for 
their attainment. This natural social group constitutes a 
society in miniature, a place to try out, to dramatize, 
the customs and experiences of real life. 

Their world is also a world of conflict. Each member 


78 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 

of the group is impelled by the same instinctive curiosity, 
the same hunger for experience, the same desire to pos¬ 
sess. The result, of course, is interference, aggression, 
fighting. The stronger takes delight in exercising his 
strength upon the weaker, in teasing a defenseless animal 
or a younger child. The one who is conscious of his 
power tramples upon the rights of an inferior and be¬ 
comes a bully. To an adult, or outsider, there is some¬ 
thing ruthless, cruel, savage, about this world of later 
childhood. It is, however, a stage in the process of 
finding one’s place in the world and of learning to live with 
others. The task of the educator is to transform these 
instinctive tendencies into useful impulses—to awaken 
sympathy, to develop respect for the rights of others, to 
arouse a spirit of chivalry, to cultivate a sense of group 
loyalty and responsibility, to direct the fighting impulse 
toward things worth fighting for, such as pertain to the 
common welfare rather than to individual advantage. 

The chief objective of the Church during these years 
is the training of boys and girls to achievement through 
self-discipline and through cooperative effort. The great 
end to be gained now is the power of self-control—the 
control of the body, its impulses, appetites, movements; 
the control of the mind, its thoughts, desires, instincts, 
passions, and its choices in the presence of differing 
values. And in order that attention may not be required 
for repeated adjustment to the same kinds of problems 
it is important that the main lines of activity, the more 
important attitudes, become early and permanently estab¬ 
lished as habits. 

The one great outstanding need of the boys and girls 
during this period is the need for some clue, some stand¬ 
ard, some principle that will enable them to evaluate this 
mass of facts and experiences that has been suddenly 
spread out before them. What does it all meant How 
are all these things related to each other and to them¬ 
selves? How can one ever hope to bring all this com- 


TEACHING CHRISTIAN RELIGION TO CHILD 79 

plexity under control? They need an interpretation of 
this new addition to their world, not in the form of an 
abstract or philosophical statement, but in terms of pur¬ 
pose and motive to action. 

As an essential prerequisite to any other service it 
may perform, the Church must undertake, as a task of 
first importance, still further to expand the idea of God 
and to deepen the boys’ and girls’ consciousness of 
God. God will still be their “Father,” but He will be also 
Worker and Creator—the great, wise, powerful Cause, 
back of His world, and its Lawgiver—yet not in any sense 
an abstraction, but a personal Friend and Companion, a 
Guide and Helper. This consciousness of God the 
Church will develop not so much by talking about it as 
by assuming as a fact, in the background of all its guid¬ 
ance of childhood, His presence and interest. All this 
world is regarded as God’s world; all men are His chil¬ 
dren, meant to live happily together; all the laws of 
nature are His laws, and observance of them will assure 
our welfare. This world as He planned it is orderly and 
happy. Where it fails of being such, the failure is due 
to our lack of knowledge of His way, or our unwilling¬ 
ness to accept it for ourselves. 

The Church will undertake to reveal the laws of God 
for human life by setting before the boys and girls the 
dramatic stories of persons who, through heroic endeavor, 
were learning to live masterfully as individuals, and hap¬ 
pily together in glad conformity to God’s laws—persons 
who were masterful and happy because they were men of 
faith, obedient and law-abiding, or weak and unhappy 
failures when lacking in faith and disobedient to God’s 
laws. This will not be, strictly speaking, a course of 
study in the biographies of religious men. It will rather 
be a sharing of human experience, a living through to¬ 
gether of the exploits of great men meeting strange ad¬ 
ventures, overcoming unexpected dangers, fighting 
doughty opponents, doing the ordinary, prosaic duty of 


8 o THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 


life in a noble, cheerful way, and through it all keeping 
an intimate and friendly relation to God. Thus the 
Church provides for the boys and girls models for their 
admiration and imitation. “The right in the early years 
is what one’s models endorse; the wrong is what they 
condemn.” But they should be presented in such a way 
as to stimulate, not stifle, individual activity and mental 
effort. Imitation “should involve conscious choice of 
models, should involve analysis of the method of gaining 
results comparable with the model’s in order that attain¬ 
ment may more nearly measure up with ideals. This 
use of imitation involves judgment and choice, construc¬ 
tive imagination, and independent work.” 2 

The Old Testament is rich in stories suited to the 
needs of this period. Its very first chapters present, in 
a dramatic and impressive manner, a picture of the cre¬ 
ative activity of God and the process by which chaos 
was reduced to order. In the second story of creation the 
world is pictured as a garden, interesting, beautiful, at¬ 
tractive, in which God has placed us for our happiness 
and in the care of which He expects our help. A friendly 
world, a powerful but kindly God, a pleasant compan¬ 
ionship—such is the teaching of the first two chapters 
of Genesis. The third chapter emphasizes the duty of 
self-control—more specifically, the control of appetite—a 
particularly difficult thing for boys and girls at this age. 
It pictures a personal relationship to God, a knowledge 
of His will, a possibility of choice, a conflict between 
opposing forces, the loss of happiness through disobedi¬ 
ence to God. In the story of Cain and Abel the duty of 
respect for the rights of others, the duty of appreciation, 
is contrasted with the dangers of jealousy and hatred. 
The disaster of the Flood and the deliverance of 
Noah broaden the conception of the tendency toward 

2 See Norsworthy and Whitley, “The Psychology of Child¬ 
hood,” pp. 73, 74. O’Shea, “Social Development and Education,” 

p. 78. 


I 



TEACHING CHRISTIAN RELIGION TO CHILD 81 

selfish and wilful conduct and reveal its consequences. 

Poetic passages which give utterance to these same 
truths form a fitting vehicle for expressing the sentiments 
naturally aroused by such stories. The 19th Psalm, or 
passages from the 24th, the 33d, the 77th, the 147th, and 
the 148th, may be committed to memory and used in 
connection with worship. Hymns, like 

“Lord of all being, throned afar, 

Thy glory flames from sun and star,” 
or 

“My God, I thank thee, who hast made 
The earth so bright,” 

voice the feelings of reverence, appreciation, and grati¬ 
tude which appropriately arise in connection with the 
thought of God in nature. Nature walks, bird walks, 
“astronomy parties,” garden clubs, all help to deepen the 
sense of comradeship with nature and of communion and 
cooperation with the God of nature. 

The patriarchs lived and moved in an atmosphere 
peculiarly congenial to boys and girls at this period. The 
nomadic wanderings, the picturesque personalities, their 
simple faith, their achievements and their shortcomings, 
the practical problems of conduct in primitive social rela¬ 
tionships —all these are faithfully set forth in a series 
of dramatic episodes closely analagous in many respects 
to the experience of boys and girls. They will appreciate 
and enjoy the romance of Abraham’s departure from 
home in response to the Divine command, his long journey 
in search of a better country, his solemn act of worship 
as he comes to a stopping-place. They will feel a certain 
sympathy with him in his relation to his immediate 
patriarchal group. It is noteworthy that the question of 
the moral basis of relationship between groups is raised 
three times in Genesis (12:9 to 13:1; 20; 26:1-14) in 
practically the same form. How far is one under obliga¬ 
tion to speak the truth? Is not falsehood permissible in 
time of danger and as a means of avoiding unpleasant 


82 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 


experiences? Must one tell the truth outside of his im¬ 
mediate social circle? Such is the problem embodied in 
these episodes, a problem that is real and vital to boys 
and girls. They may indeed be truthful to their own 
associates, but to the members of another gang, to the 
school teacher, to the policeman, or even to their parents, 
they may have little hesitation in telling a falsehood, if 
unpleasant consequences are likely to follow the telling 
of the truth. 

The controversy between the herdsmen of Abraham 
and those of Lot is a good illustration of the relation¬ 
ship between rival groups, or factions of the same group. 
Shall they fight it out, or find a just basis of agreement? 
In Abraham’s magnanimous treatment of Lot is provided 
an intelligible standard of action. In Abraham’s rescue 
of Lot from the three kings there is recognition not only 
of social responsibility but of the obligation to fight 
against a social wrong. The same thought is presented 
again, with added religious emphasis, in Abraham’s rescue 
of Lot from Sodom. 

Jacob and Esau are examples, respectively, of self- 
seeking shrewdness and deceit pitted against uncontrolled 
appetite. Esau’s loss of “birthright,” Jacob’s flight from 
home, the long journey to Haran and extended period of 
service with Laban, his dread of meeting Esau, his 
struggle with the unknown opponent, all suggest that 
deceit and trickery, in the long run, do not pay. In the 
series of episodes in the narrative of Joseph, on the 
other hand, his transparent candor, his loyalty to his 
ideals of honor and purity, his fearless effort to be true 
to his God, his sense of justice and fair-dealing, his 
forgiveness of his brothers and his affection for his 
father, find abundant sanction in the success with which 
his efforts were rewarded. Such stories as these ought 
not merely to be told, but read, learned, and dramatized 
by all our boys and girls. 

They need to be supplemented by stories of other 


TEACHING CHRISTIAN RELIGION TO CHILD 83 

pioneers who went forth upon adventures of faith and in 
the consciousness of a divine mission: the Pilgrim Fath¬ 
ers, braving the storms of a wintry sea that they might 
be free to worship God according to the dictates of their 
own conscience; men like Livingstone, meeting countless 
dangers and overcoming almost incredible difficulties as 
he explored the trackless jungles of Africa. As they 
share the emotions of such heroes, they may find fitting 
expression for them in hymns like Leonard Bacon’s: 

“O God, beneath thy guiding hand, 

Our exiled fathers crossed the sea.” 

While in Genesis the stories reflect chiefly the rela¬ 
tions between individuals within the family group and 
only occasionally reveal consciousness of other groups, 
in Exodus we are at once confronted by problems which 
arise in connection with the wider relations of men: the 
relation of servant to master, of workman to overseer, of 
subject to ruler. Here we have a series of episodes in 
which is being fought out the battle for freedom, the 
struggle of a group of people against oppressive masters. 
Moreover, we see in the stories of the Exodus a social 
group in process of formation. At first unorganized, 
it proceeds to organize itself under the leadership of 
Moses, it gradually achieves a kind of group solidarity, 
it learns how to secure its own elemental necessities— 
food, shelter, land—and to defend itself against its 
enemies, it makes for itself laws to govern its intra¬ 
group relationships; and throughout this process the 
reader is reminded of the great leader’s consciousness 
of his own inadequacy, his dependence upon God, his 
constant attempt to act in accordance with God’s will for 
his people, and his effort also to impress upon the impa¬ 
tient group their own dependence upon God. All this is 
closely similar to what takes place in the lives of boys and 
girls during later childhood and makes the stories of the 
Exodus peculiarly valuable for this period. Not that they 


84 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 

“recapitulate” the history of the human race, but 
rather that each individual must learn how to live peace¬ 
ably and happily with others, must learn how to limit 
himself, adapt himself, control himself, and he does this 
at first on a small scale, in a group spontaneously formed 
of those of his own age and sex and condition. This 
group too must have a chance to acquire a group 
consciousness, it must have group leadership, it must de¬ 
velop group loyalty, it must work out some basis for an 
orderly group life, it must learn to maintain itself as a 
group against disintegrating forces. In the quest of ex¬ 
perience and freedom the lesson must be learned—just 
as it was in the discipline of the wilderness—that there 
can be no freedom, no experience that is satisfying, except 
in accordance with law. After becoming familiar with 
these experiences of Moses and his people, the whole mat¬ 
ter may be summed up in the form of general statements, 
as in the Ten Commandments, or the more specific com¬ 
mands, in Leviticus 19, covering theft, false testimony, 
gossip mongering, lying, respect for parents, elders and 
those in authority, tale-bearing, harboring resentment, 
seeking revenge, and the like. 

In the book of Judges we are brought more completely 
to consider the relationships of groups to each other. We 
have the picture of group solidarity in the effort to pos¬ 
sess the land, group loyalty for a definite end for group 
advantage. This in itself is a distinct achievement, in¬ 
volving the subordination of individual interests to the 
welfare of the larger whole. The stories of Deborah, 
Gideon, Jepthah, Samson, and others bring out different 
aspects of this problem and provide material for fruitful 
group discussion. Through it all, the boys and girls 
should not miss the lesson of the book as a whole: social 
order is dependent upon religious faith, trust, and accept¬ 
ance of God’s laws; the lack of these leads to social 
anarchy, chaos, and suffering. -Specific lessons readily 
suggest themselves in other Old Testament stories. 


l 


TEACHING CHRISTIAN RELIGION TO CHILD 85 

David’s battle with Goliath is a classic illustration of 
moral and physical courage; Nathan’s rebuke in the para¬ 
ble of the pet lamb is a forceful repudiation of the theory 
that might makes right; the exploits of Elijah illustrate 
both moral courage and the effect of physical weariness; 
Naaman and Gehazi reveal the meanness of a covetous 
spirit; Daniel emphasizes the importance of self-control 
in appetite and the glory of a courageous devotion to high 
ideals. 

There is, of course, much in the Old Testament ma¬ 
terial that is below the standards of a Christian civiliza¬ 
tion. Not infrequently acts which we should now char¬ 
acterize as unjustifiable, or even brutal and savage in their 
cruelty, pass without condemnation. Such acts need not 
be defended. They represent a stage of social progress. 
To boys and girls these may not seem so incongruous as 
they do to adults, for they themselves are not yet far 
beyond a similar stage of development. Let them discuss 
together these questions of right and wrong. But the 
time must come when they will need to be brought face 
to face with higher standards in the life of Jesus. There 
need not be any attempt, however, at this period to 
teach the “Life of Christ” as such, still less a philosophy 
of His life. The first disciples thought of Jesus as a 
man who was ever conscious of the presence of God. To 
Him, this was always God’s world. His care was over 
the smallest of His creatures, and His highest joy was 
found in giving Himself untiringly to working with God 
by helping the people about Llim. The earliest Gospel, 
Mark, is a collection of stories setting forth the activities 
of Jesus in these ways; the Gospel of Matthew contains 
in addition a summary of Jesus’ sayings as principles of 
life; the Gospel of Luke emphasizes still further His 
tenderness, sympathy, and kindness in relieving human 
need. It is not until we get to the Fourth Gospel that 
an attempt is made to account for Jesus. The teaching 
of the Church for these years of later childhood should 


86 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 


follow mainly the concrete story method of Mark and 
Luke, showing Jesus always as the man of noble and 
generous action meeting day by day the problems of life 
in the midst of our ordinary relationships, but in a new 
and better way. There may be included also such por¬ 
tions of Matthew as complete the picture, supply his rules 
of conduct, and reveal the attitude of trust and the spirit 
of good-will as the heart of Jesus’ way of life. 

The deeds of other great and good men should be por¬ 
trayed, men who followed Jesus immediately or subse¬ 
quently: stories of the early Christian group and its 
communal life, Ananias, Stephen, Peter, and Paul; stories 
of helpfulness, stories of controversy and struggle, stories 
of faith and achievement. With these may be studied pas¬ 
sages in the letters of Paul regarding the importance of 
physical self-discipline and the control of appetite and 
passion, the evils of quarreling, jealousy, ill temper, slan¬ 
der, gossip, and sexual vice and urging that the body be 
kept fit for the indwelling of the Spirit of God; passages 
regarding control of the thoughts; and passages in which 
the various relationships within the family and the com¬ 
munity are set forth in their Christian aspects. This 
list may be supplemented indefinitely by stories of men 
and women who have lived in the spirit of Jesus and 
who have made contribution to the welfare of mankind. 
Colonel Waring who cleaned up Cuba; Clara Barton, the 
founder of the Red Cross in America; physicians like Dr. 
Lozier who gave their lives in the effort to eradicate 
yellow fever; missionaries like Paton of the New 
Hebrides or Jackson in Alaska or Judson in Burma or 
Grenfell in Labrador—here are stories full of adventure, 
romance, and Christian heroism. The whole course of 
study may be summed up by a perusal, and perhaps 
memorization, of portions of the “picture-gallery” in the 
eleventh chapter of Hebrews, while, admiration for these 
heroes may be expressed through such hymns as 


TEACHING CHRISTIAN RELIGION TO CHILD 87 

“The Son of God goes forth to war— 

Who follows in his train?” 

Out of all this study there should gradually emerge a 
body of laws, standards, rules of life, representing the 
requirements to which everyone who loves God will make 
his conduct conform—a set of rules not unlike those 
expressed in the Boy Scout oath, but more fully elabo¬ 
rated and going rather more into detail. They will be 
honest, they will tell the truth, they will respect the rights 
of others, they will be alert to do a good turn, they will 
be fair in play, faithful in doing their duty, industrious, 
respectful to elders, obedient to those in authority, chival¬ 
rous toward the weak, and kind to all. Every boy and 
girl should acquire such a definite body of rules as a 
permanent possession. But they do not acquire these by 
a mere act of memorisation. The best laws are those 
which each individual formulates for himself, tests in 
his own experience, and adopts as his own free act of 
choice. Whatever of value there may be in suggesting a 
classic phrasing of such rules of conduct, the memoriza¬ 
tion of these should come after, rather than before, dis¬ 
cussion and explanation. Otherwise they have little more 
value than to acquaint him with a vocabulary, lacking in 
vital content. Place must be provided, therefore, for 
discussion of alternatives, weighing of motives, passing 
judgment, making choices; for dramatizations, which will 
help them to feel more keenly the emotions accompany¬ 
ing such conduct; for group enterprises of their own in 
which the standards that they have seen in others acquire 
reality in their own lives. 

In every possible way the material of instruction 
should become a vital part of every-day experience. The 
teaching program fails that does not provide opportunity 
for giving expression in actual living to the feelings 
and attitudes which are embodied in the characters 
studied. Service activities should be a vital part of the 


88 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 


religious education of boys and girls; missions and social 
service will not then be regarded as accomplishments 
grafted upon the Christian life, but the life itself coming 
to normal expression. Training in worship needs to be 
made natural, vital, spontaneous, and pervasive; prayer 
and song and communion with God are not occasional 
pietistic performances but belong to the very essence of 
Christian consciousness. The child, no doubt, needs to 
become familiar with prayers and hymns and other forms 
of words which religiously minded persons have found 
a satisfying means of cultivating a sense of companion¬ 
ship with God; but he needs also practice in phrasing 
his own sense of dependence and need and grateful 
appreciation. 

The task of the Church for this age, in a word, is to 
present to the boys and girls pictures or models of con¬ 
duct, and to make these pictures really live by interpreting 
the episodes and exploits in terms of their own present 
experience. 

The great majority of children drop out of day school 
at the end of this period. The Church must face the 
fact that many are also likely soon to pass beyond the 
reach of its teaching agencies. Whatever it has taught, 
or failed to teach, by the twelfth or thirteenth year 
must serve, for many, as their equipment for life. Even 
for those who remain within the sphere of the Church’s 
influence, the teaching of these early years will become 
the foundation upon which must be built the later struc¬ 
ture of Christian character. From every point of view, 
therefore, it is of the utmost importance that the teach¬ 
ing of the Church during this elementary period, and 
particularly during these active, restless years of later 
childhood, be thorough, systematic, practical, vivid, and 
vital. 




CHAPTER IV 


TEACHING THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION 

TO YOUTH 

At about 12 years of age every young person crosses 
an imaginary line which separates childhood from youth. 
It may not be possible in any individual instance to 
designate the exact date, and we must guard against 
emphasizing the stages of development so much as to 
obscure the fact of continuity of experience, but it is 
certain that a transition takes place which is attended by 
radical changes in consciousness and fraught with the 
utmost significance for education and religion. 

Most, if not all, of the characteristic problems of 
adolescent years find their primary cause in physical 
changes. With the rapid increase in stature the young 
person gains literally a new “point of view.” Instead of 
“looking up” to his elders he now finds himself on a level 
with them and “looks them in the eye.” This naturally 
gives rise to a new feeling of independence, of equality, 
freedom, and no doubt goes far to explain the young 
person’s resentment at the restraints imposed by adult 
authority and insistence upon being treated as a reason¬ 
ing being. Again, growth and development of bones and 
muscles, proceeding at different rates of speed, give rise 
to a physical uneasiness and to awkwardness in move¬ 
ment. This awkwardness, which is frequently the occa¬ 
sion of rebuke, ridicule, and misunderstanding on the 
part of parents, creates a feeling of shyness, sensitiveness, 
self-consciousness. Not infrequently there develops a 
sense of isolation from adult society and at the same time 
a reluctance to associate with younger boys and girls 
whose ways have been outgrown. Hence arise among 

89 


90 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 

young people the spontaneously formed groups or 
“gangs” of their own “set”—composed of their peers, 
sympathetic spirits who are facing similar problems and 
who are intensely loyal to each other. Other physical 
changes have to do with the ripening of the organs of 
sex and attending this development are strange new in¬ 
stincts, whose significance is but imperfectly realized by 
youth, but whose presence begins to be evidenced by a 
new attraction of each sex toward the other. 

Here, then, is our young person, overgrown, awkward, 
independent, possibly defiant of authority, restless, sensi¬ 
tive, inconsistent, critical, elusive, clannish, sentimental, 
irresponsible, self-conscious; yet loyal, eager, enthusiastic, 
ready to cooperate and even to be self-sacrificing within 
the limits of his self-chosen social group; desiring free¬ 
dom but shirking duty—a difficult, lovable, tantalizing, 
and exasperating age. 

i. Early Adolescence: Ages 12 to 16 

The years immediately preceding adolescence were 
years of acquisition. The boy or girl was engaged in 
collecting facts and material things, information, experi¬ 
ences—everything that could be appropriated—and with¬ 
out much thought as to their relative values or much 
attempt at arrangement and classification. The time has 
now come to assort this mass of detail, to find a clue to 
its organization, to employ critical comparison, to set 
standards of value, to find an ideal toward which to 
grow and to which to commit one’s life. A new con¬ 
sciousness of self is now arising and one is searching 
for the stuff out of which a self is to be made. 

If the Church has properly performed its teaching 
work up to this point we may assume a religious equip¬ 
ment at entrance upon adolescence somewhat as follows: 
a consciousness of God as Father, Helper ever-present, 
Worker, Creator, and Lawgiver; an attitude toward God 


TEACHING CHRISTIAN RELIGION TO YOUTH 91 

of trust, affection, gratitude, and loyal cooperation with 
His purposes; a conception of the world as God’s world, 
of nature as the expression of His wisdom, power, and 
love; of human society as the family of God, in which 
each member is responsible for respecting the rights of 
others and for cooperation with all for the common wel¬ 
fare ; a wide acquaintance with persons, historical and 
contemporaneous, the story of whose lives is the story 
of achievement made possible by faith in God and con¬ 
formity to His laws; a knowledge of Jesus as the one 
who embodies most perfectly and expresses most fully 
this spirit of comradeship with God and harmony with 
His will; habits of private and group worship, in ways 
that are the natural expression of child aspiration; and 
habits of fair play, honesty, and truthfulness on the play¬ 
ground; of helpfulness, self-control, and conformity to 
God’s rules of life in general, coupled with a knowledge 
of simply formulated statements of such laws or rules as 
are fundamental to happy life together. Assuming all 
this, what further is needed to equip the adolescent for 
exploring this new world of self and meeting his new 
problems ? 

It should be the aim of the Church at this period to 
introduce young people as widely as possible to the lives 
of great men and women —ancient Hebrews, early Chris¬ 
tians, saints, apostles, missionaries, and those who in all 
ages have followed high ideals and served their fellow- 
men. This study will not concern itself now so much 
with deeds as with motives, not so much with exploits 
as with loyalties. These lives will be presented in such 
a manner as to raise in each instance the kinds of prob¬ 
lems youth must grapple with, and the members of the 
group will be encouraged to enter sympathetically, but 
also critically, into a discussion of the possible courses 
of action, the motives which finally led to decision, and 
the comparative values of results attained. 

The range of problems thus exemplified in concrete 


92 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 

characters will be as wide as possible. Problems con¬ 
cerning the physical life will be presented in lives that 
regarded the body as sacred, to be kept pure as the instru¬ 
ment of the spirit of God. There will be a study of lives 
in their relation to other lives as members of families, 
social groups, the community, the nation, and the world. 
The object will be to discover the attitudes and motives 
which should govern human relationships, and especially 
to widen sympathy and to extend the area within which 
loyalty to one’s fellowmen is operative. Through all 
these lives will run, as a golden thread, the religious 
motive, the consciousness of God as present Friend, Com¬ 
panion, Guide. 

Through contact with such lives youth will be gather¬ 
ing and sifting the material out of which an Ideal, a Self, 
is made and gradually, by processes of elimination, criti¬ 
cism, and synthesis, will be arriving at a standard of 
conduct embodied in an ideal personality. Whatever 
finally receives recognition as Ideal will command thence¬ 
forth the loyal devotion of youth. It is this free com¬ 
mitment of the self to the Ideal which is the climax 
toward which all educational processes converge. 

For such study it is not so necessary that many lives 
be studied as that certain typical, idealistic personalities 
be studied intensively. The material should show these 
in the act of facing crises or issues, they should reveal 
deliberation and suspended judgment in the presence of 
these issues and, if possible, the motives that led to de¬ 
cisions. As the study progresses, there should be dis¬ 
closed, from these successive grapplings with problems, 
certain underlying life purposes, or ideals, in accordance 
with which decisions were consistently made. Finally, 
there should be some clue as to the attitude of the person 
himself toward his own ideals, decisions, and acts; did 
he find them, on the whole, satisfying and, if so, on what 
ground? Or was he laying up for himself all the time 
a harvest of barren regrets? 


TEACHING CHRISTIAN RELIGION TO YOUTH 93 

The life of M-oses, for example, may be made the basis 
for such study. With many of the incidents in his life 
the pupils are already familiar, but not with his inner 
struggles an d purposes. These are revealed as one tries 
to put to himself the problem which confronted Moses 
and to live through with him the experiences he encoun¬ 
tered in attempting step by step to work out its solution. 

What, in fact, was the problem of Moses? Nothing 
less than the deliverance of his people and the training 
of them to live together in a safe and well-ordered society. 
The background of Egyptian life, the opportunities at 
the court of Pharaoh, the obligation of Moses to 
Pharaoh’s daughter for his bringing up and education 
—all these should be weighed over against the priva¬ 
tions and the ignominy which were the lot of his 
people. The scene in the desert at the burning bush 
exhibits Moses in the act of making his decision. 
Other factors are mentioned—his lack of certain desir¬ 
able talents, his uncertainty as to the response to his lead¬ 
ership, his shrinking from the magnitude of the task. 
With this as a clue to interpretation the whole career of 
Moses may be studied. How far was his conduct con¬ 
sistently controlled by this great initial purpose? Was 
his faith justified? How were his native deficiencies 
supplemented? Did his faith in God or his devotion to 
his people ever falter? How far did he succeed and 
wherein did he fail and why? By making this project 
of Moses their own, boys and girls will find that their 
own problems are being raised and that light is being 
thrown upon them. 

In connection with this study there may be made a 
comparative study of a life like Booker Washington’s, 
in many ways similar to that of Moses. What were the 
points of similarity or difference? What obstacles did 
he encounter and wherein did he succeed? What part 
did faith in God, in his cause, and in his fellowmen play 
in his career? What were the elements of strength and 


94 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 

of weakness in his character? What satisfactions came 
to him? 

The group needs opportunity also to formulate similar 
ideals on the basis of their own experience and to put 
ideals to the test. Where can young people today devote 
their energies on behalf of an oppressed or struggling 
group? Let the class search for and discover some such 
enterprise to which they will lend their aid. They may 
choose to support a colored boy or girl in the attempt to 
get an education, or help to finance a kindergarten in a 
needy district of the city, or take some share in the 
struggle against the evils of child labor, or even determine 
that they will champion the rights of boys and girls of 
their own acquaintance who suffer social ostracism and 
ridicule—Jews, Italians, Mexicans, Chinese, Negroes. 

Another life that is rich in material for such intensive 
study is that of David—fascinating from the standpoint 
of his physical courage and resourcefulness, his spirit 
of honor and fair-play, his modesty, his reverence for 
sacred things, his loyalty as a friend, his affection as 
a parent, his justice and magnanimity as a ruler. Why 
should he have been chosen for his high position? How 
did he conduct himself during the difficult period of Saul’s 
later years? What was the secret of his power over his 
companions? How and why did he practice self- 
restraint? How did he bear suspense and face danger 
and meet disappointment and endure success ? What were 
his most serious limitations and weaknesses ? What were 
the dominant purposes of his career? What were the 
significant choices which he made, and under what cir¬ 
cumstances? In what sense was David a religious man? 
Were the members of his race justified in looking back 
upon him as the ideal king? 

With this study as a background, comparative studies 
may be made of other kings of Israel. What problems 
had they to face? By what ideals were they guided? 
What qualities in the life of each one were outstanding? 


TEACHING CHRISTIAN RELIGION TO YOUTH 95 

With these, too, may be compared other historic charac¬ 
ters, like George Washington or Abraham Lincoln or 
Theodore Roosevelt. In what respects were these men, 
living at critical periods in history, like David? What 
made them attractive to their fellowmen? What was the 
secret of their power of leadership? Were they religious 
men and, if so, what part did their faith play in their ca¬ 
reers ? How far are such ideals practicable in the lives of 
young people ? In gangs of boys, what is it that boys ad¬ 
mire in the leader of the gang? Would David make a 
good leader today? What problems must be faced in 
every such group ? Are the best leaders religious ? How 
do they show it? What is the effect on the life of the 
group? If conditions in the gang are unsatisfactory how 
far is this fact to be accounted for by the qualities, or 
lack of them, in the leader? What can be done about it? 

Another type of character is represented in Ruth, 
whose story is full of charm. Her loyalty and devo¬ 
tion, her simple faith, her unwavering purpose, give to 
her character a rare winsomeness. How are these ex¬ 
pressed in her conduct? How does Ruth compare with 
her sister, Orpah, on the one hand, or with Naomi, on 
the other, as a type of womanhood? Were her ideals 
justified in the outcome? 

Elijah is a rugged character, attractive for his lonely 
grandeur and moral strength. What was the secret of 
his strength? What is the explanation of his loneliness? 
How explain his discouragement just at the moment of 
his greatest triumph? Was something lacking in his 
idealism? or in his religion? or was this reaction simply 
due to physical weariness? If so, what relation has one’s 
physical condition to his decisions and achievements? 
Where are the danger points in life? 

Isaiah and Jeremiah may be studied as examples of 
the great patriot and statesman. At what crisis did they 
respond to the call for leadership and how did the call 
come? How did they find out what to do? What diffi- 


96 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 

culties had they to contend against? What qualities of 
courage, judgment, decision, were required? What ideals 
did they hold up before their people? With what re¬ 
sults ? 

The supreme object of study during this period will 
be the life of Jesus, approached now especially from 
the inner side. What were the motives of Jesus ? What 
problems confronted Him? Upon what principles did 
He make decisions? What was the controlling purpose 
of His life? In several ways the Gospel of Luke has 
a special appeal for young people. He professes to have 
sifted the existing traditions concerning Jesus and to have 
preserved an authentic and orderly record. He was a 
person full of human sympathy, as is evident from the 
character of the incidents selected and the manner of 
describing them. He narrates Jesus’ birth and infancy 
in such a way as to reveal the poetic feeling and religious 
fervor pervading them. He preserves the only references 
to the childhood of Jesus and especially the narrative of 
the visit to the temple and the questioning of the learned 
scholars—a curiosity regarding the deep problems of life 
quite intelligible to those who are themselves just at the 
threshold of intellectual and religious awakening. 

When Jesus, as a young man entering upon His career, 
passes through the deep spiritual struggle in the wilder¬ 
ness, what motives were contending for mastery? How 
would one state them so as to be intelligible now? How 
was the struggle finally decided? How did He discover 
a life-program? Of what significance was His visit just 
then to His home town? What did He try to tell His 
fellow townsmen that day in the synagogue? With what 
result? Was Jesus discouraged? So one may follow on 
through His life, pausing at each critical point to see 
how Jesus weighed the various factors in His problem, 
and then decided. Why, for example, did He choose 
disciples ? Why did He spend the night in prayer before 
choosing? Why did He talk in parables? What was 


TEACHING CHRISTIAN RELIGION TO YOUTH 97 

He trying to accomplish at Caesarea Philippi by His ques¬ 
tioning of His disciples? In what ways did He resemble 
Elijah, or John the Baptist, or one of the prophets? 
When the time drew near for the final chapter in His 
career, what must have been the feelings of Jesus as He 
thought of all He had wished to achieve, but now saw 
to be impossible? Did He have the same sense of sor¬ 
row, of disappointment, of bitterness and despair which 
any youth with high purposes and hopes would feel under 
like circumstances, misunderstood, opposed, hated, per¬ 
secuted by the very persons He had hoped to help, His 
whole career ruined almost at its beginning? How could 
Jesus, under the weight of this burden, keep continually 
helpful and courageous? How could He keep on telling 
the story of God’s love; the story of the lost sheep, the 
lost coin, the lost son; the story of the Good Samaritan; 
the story of the Pharisee and publican; the story of the 
importunate widow? Did His own faith never waver, 
even in that moment on the Cross when all had forsaken 
Him and He cried, “My God, my God, why has Thou 
forsaken me?” 

Was the life of Jesus a success or a failure? What 
did He wish to accomplish? What did He, in fact, ac¬ 
complish by His life and death? 

It will be the endeavor of the teacher so to present 
the supreme example of a perfect life that youth will 
actually enter into Jesus’ experience—His hopes, His 
struggles, His disappointments, His sufferings, His 
triumphs. The character of Jesus, by sheer force of its 
intrinsic beauty, should captivate the imagination of the 
pupils and become the incarnation of all youth’s hopes 
and longings. The ideals embodied in that life should 
become so clear that they may win spontaneous accept¬ 
ance and that this acceptance may find expression in an 
act of commitment of the self to Jesus, as Friend, Ex¬ 
ample, Saviour, and Lord. This, indeed, is the very 
climax of the Church’s teaching process. 


g8 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 

Against this picture of the life of Jesus it will be pos¬ 
sible to study intensively and comparatively the careers 
of others who have lived according to Jesus’ way: lives 
of apostles, Peter, John, Paul; lives of early leaders in 
the church, Origen, Polycarp, St. Augustine; lives of 
reformers, Luther, Zwingli, Huss, Savonarola, Calvin, 
John Robinson; lives of modern heroes of the faith, mis¬ 
sionaries, ministers, physicians, teachers, Christian busi¬ 
ness men, explorers. Through all this study the en¬ 
deavor will be to lead youth into the consideration of 
the deeper problems of these lives, to discover motives, 
to appraise values, to weigh decisions. These, in turn, 
will be tested in discussion again and again, and applied 
to problems of the group itself as met with day by day. 
The teaching will be made vivid by pictures and maps 
and dramatization and analysis of situations. As the 
study progresses, the young people will be encouraged to 
think of themselves as forming a circle of disciples, and 
to express the spirit of the Master in acts of service, 
as troops of Scouts, Campfire, or other organization. 
They will seek out community needs and will undertake 
in practical ways to aid the needy and remove causes of 
suffering. 

In their common worship they may use devotional 
passages they have come upon in their study of the 
words of Jesus; or learn and repeat such choice selec¬ 
tions as Paul’s poem on love in the letter to the Corinth¬ 
ians. Such hymns as Matheson’s “O Love that wilt 
not let me go,” “O Jesus, thou art standing,” “I heard the 
voice of Jesus say,” “Just as I am” (Youth’s version) 
and Whittier’s “We may not climb the heavenly steeps” 
will fittingly express their religious feeling. 

2. Later Adolescence: 17TH Year to Maturity 

About 90 per cent of our young people end their school 
days before arriving at high school, and of those who 


TEACHING CHRISTIAN RELIGION TO YOUTH 99 

enter high school only about 15 out of every 100 remain 
to complete the course. This means that another great 
change occurs in the experience of the majority of young 
people at about the time of the 15th or 16th year. Here¬ 
tofore they have lived at home, sheltered by parental care 
or guided by teachers interested in their personal welfare. 
Now they must fare forth into the world of industry to 
find their own place in that world. Hitherto they have 
been wholly, or in large part, dependent upon their par¬ 
ents for shelter, food, and clothing. Now they must 
begin to assume responsibility for self-support. Many 
will actually leave home and friends and the familiar 
scenes of the community in which they have been reared 
and must learn to live among strangers and to face new 
temptations and dangers. Even though they remain at 
home, they will find that the shop, the office, or the store, 
with their strict regulations and unrelaxing discipline, 
constitute a very different kind of world from the home, 
the school, or the social group to which they have been 
accustomed. 1 

This period is in many respects the most critical of 
all. The sudden rush of responsibility, the sharp con¬ 
trast between the vision of life just gained and the hum¬ 
drum routine of the daily occupation, the discrepancy 
between the ideal to which one has just committed him¬ 
self and the petty annoyances and often unworthy motives 
of the practical world, the thrill and excitement of pleas¬ 
ure and adventure alternating with the depression of 
fatigue, the loneliness and discouragement which are in¬ 
separable from the task of learning new duties in a 
strange environment, the incitement to new and doubtful 
pleasures by companions whose standards are question- 

J The present chapter has to do primarily with the rank and 
file of young people. Later chapters will consider the problem 
of the education of young people who are in institutions of 
higher learning and who are of special importance because of 
their potential leadership and influence. 


0 


> 

» . 




100 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 


able—all these combine and conspire to produce the im¬ 
pression that life now in this new world of work is a 
different thing from what one has known before, that 
it is based upon different principles, subject to different 
laws, conformed to different standards and ideals. 

All this tends to create in the individual a divided con¬ 
sciousness. If he still clings to his earlier ideals and 
strives to maintain his faith in God, he will very likely 
be led to feel that the field of their operation is limited—• 
they have little or nothing to do with the daily business of 
life. Here the Sermon on the Mount will not seem to 
apply: Sunday and weekday, the sacred and the secular, 
have little in common. There may be many such distinct 
and unrelated worlds, each with its own regulative cus¬ 
toms, its own code of ethics: the world of business, the 
world of politics, the world of the social pleasure-groups 
—the club, the lodge, the amusement-hall—and the world 
one still calls home. 

Not only is there a tendency to divide up one’s present 
life into separate, unrelated worlds but also to think of 
these as the most real, because the most immediate and 
challenging, and, by contrast, to regard the past as out- 
of-date and without significance. Cut off from home, 
cut off from one’s past, living intensely in the vivid and 
changeful present, it is not strange that this period of 
youth should be often characterized as reckless, incon¬ 
sistent, impulsive, and irresponsible. 

Clearly, the business of the Church at this time is to 
seek to bring about in the young person unity of con¬ 
sciousness. The ideal to which youth has committed him¬ 
self in the earlier period must now be interpreted in 
terms of the new surroundings and faith must be put 
frankly to the test in solving the new problems. It will 
be found, of course, that many aspects of the new life 
are out of harmony with the ideal. These instances of 
disharmony are opportunities for the Church, through its 
sympathetic teaching, to enlist youth in some form of 



TEACHING CHRISTIAN RELIGION TO YOUTH ioi 

Christian enterprise looking toward the changing of so¬ 
ciety and its institutions into forms that are more Chris¬ 
tian. The first approach to this task may be an attempt 
to develop a Christian attitude toward the world in 
general—an attitude of service rather than of self-seeking. 
From this point of view, vocation is an opportunity not 
merely for personal advantage or advancement, but for 
making a personal contribution to the common welfare. 
This opens the way for vocational guidance, for placing 
at the disposal of youth the Christian experience of the 
Church, helping them to avoid on the one hand the 
tragedy of the “blind alley” and on the other hand to 
choose the vocation for which they are best fitted by 
native talent and education and the one which offers 
the largest field both for useful service and reasonable 
return in legitimate satisfactions. 

The Church needs to help also in the solving of prob¬ 
lems which arise in connection with this transition to a 
life of industry. There is need for a Christian motive; 
there is also need for wisdom in meeting the unexpected 
strains of a new position. The uses of time and of 
money, the relation of recreation to health and happiness, 
the choice of companions, the establishment of proper 
attitudes towards employers, fellow-workers, the opposite 
sex, the community at large, the State, the world, these 
are now vital questions. Many of these problems will 
best be met by an objective study of society, its structure 
and its institutions, as they arise out of the very variety 
of standards which are current in every community. 
The method of study may be partly historical, for it will 
be a great help to find that there is a direct causal con¬ 
nection between the world as we know it, its institutions 
and its social habits, and the world of yesterday. Many 
of these institutions and habits are the outcome of a long 
social evolution. If we would know whither society is 
tending we must know whence it has come. Old Testa¬ 
ment history presents a picture of social development 


102 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 

from very primitive beginnings to a highly complex state, 
and a development in which the religious motive was 
strong. The history of New Testament times and of the 
Christian Church reveals the conflict of selfish with un¬ 
selfish motive and the progress of civilization toward the 
Christian ideal for society. Properly taught, these sub¬ 
jects may be tremendously helpful to the young person, 
enabling him to understand that many of the defects of 
society are due to the influence of unchristian motives 
and the blind conflict of selfish interests which the Chris¬ 
tian religion and the Christian Church are striving to 
supersede. At the same time, history offers ground for 
confidence in the possibility of resistance and struggle 
against obstacles which seem, at first thought, insur¬ 
mountable. But the teaching of history for this end must 
be no mere recital or memorization of facts. It must be, 
from first to last, an interpretation of life and of the 
working of the religious motive in society. 

* 

One may take, for example, the earlier period of He¬ 
brew history prior to the establishment of the monarchy 
under King David. What were the characteristic fea¬ 
tures of social life in the comparatively primitive stage 
represented in the book of Judges, or more dimly pic¬ 
tured in Genesis and Exodus? Here we have a nomadic 
clan, with its family interpretation of everything per¬ 
taining to social relations—a relatively simple form of 
social organization, yet possessing in embryo many of the 
structures necessary for a more complex social order. 
Let the various aspects of such a simple brotherhood be 
discussed in all their bearings until young people come to 
feel that they understand not only what the conditions 
were but why they were. In process of time, the Hebrew 
nation came into existence. What were the forces that 
brought about this change from a nomadic clan-society 
to a settled agricultural, village-and-peasant society? 
What changes had to take place during the transition? 
What was the effect upon the rights of the individual. 


TEACHING CHRISTIAN RELIGION TO YOUTH 103 

upon his economic welfare, upon the methods of admin¬ 
istering justice and upon the standards of justice, upon the 
idea of God and the methods of worship, upon the attitude 
toward responsibility and duty, upon the conception of 
the meaning of life, upon the willingness to cooperate? 
Here are problems of fundamental importance, involving 
questions of value and standards of life, questions of 
faith and morals, temptations and choice, that are closely 
akin to those which young people themselves must meet 
in their transition from a family atmosphere to the life 
of the work-a-day world and the more complex social 
relationships. 

In such an approach to history there is splendid oppor¬ 
tunity for study of the place and influence of the prophet, 
as a preacher of righteousness, as a stimulator of con¬ 
science, as a leader of men, and as a statesman. Where 
did he get his message? How did he endeavor to win 
attention for it? Why did he take the positions he as¬ 
sumed, often in opposition to the will of the authorities? 
What values did he seek to conserve? Are the prophets 
to be classed as “conservatives” or “radicals,” as “reac¬ 
tionaries” or “progressives” or “insurgents”? To what 
motives did they appeal? What were their more impor¬ 
tant teachings? And what permanent results followed 
their activity? 

In a similar way the thinkers of Israel may be studied, 
the “wise men,” the “sages,” as they grappled with the 
broader philosophical or theological problems of their 
time. There was, for instance, the problem of God’s re¬ 
lation to His world. For such study compare the ancient 
mythology of Babylonia with the accounts of Creation in 
Genesis, and with nature passages in the Psalms. What 
does life mean, is life worth living? This problem is 
discussed in Ecclesiastes. The book of Job presents a 
compendium of rival theories as to the meaning of suffer¬ 
ing. The book of Jonah may form the basis for an appeal 


TO6 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 


Reformation, the migration of Pilgrim, Puritan, and 
Huguenot, the building of a new nation, a democracy, 
the American commonwealth. From such study we may 
learn, better than from any other sources, the real meaning 
of democracy. What is the source and character of 
American ideals ? What does democracy mean in 
America? Is it, on the whole, the Christian conception 
of society? 

The meaning of these principles must be worked out 
by the young people themselves, in the light of their own 
experience. They will be aided in this by their religious 
teachers, but the assistance given will be in the line of 
suggestion and leadership rather than by dogmatic or 
even systematic indoctrination. The aim will be, of 
course, to help them acquire a system of Christian doc¬ 
trine, a working philosophy of life, but the method will be 
that of the laboratory, an inductive study of society itself 
by investigation, survey, and discussion of findings. Such 
surveys will include a study of the institutions common to 
every community—homes, shops, stores, schools, libraries, 
places of amusement, churches. It will be a critical study, 
endeavoring to face frankly conditions which are not 
consistent with the Christian standard. But it will be 
also a constructive study seeking to discover means and 
methods whereby the defects in present society may be 
corrected. 

As young people work together, in close touch with 
Christian ideals on the one hand and with actual social 
conditions on the other, convictions will be forming con¬ 
cerning the desirable standards of a Christian society— 
convictions concerning family life, concerning business 
and commercial relationships, concerning community edu¬ 
cation and cooperation, concerning the Church and its 
mission. As they work together, experimentally, they will 
be gaining the best possible introduction not only to 
society but to the Church itself. As they study the 
history of social progress they will be discovering various 


TEACHING CHRISTIAN RELIGION TO YOUTH 107 

movements or causes with some one or more of which 
they may identify themselves. In other words, the ideal, 
which in the earlier period assumed form as a possible 
personal self, has now been more widely interpreted in 
terms of a personal relation of the self to society. 

The climax of the Church’s teaching work at this stage 
will be the presentation of a picture of ideal society and 
social relationships against this background of personal 
and race experience and philosophy of life. What is the 
basis of such a society? What institutions are funda¬ 
mental to its welfare? At what points does society, as 
we know it, fall short of the ideal? By what means and 
methods can it be brought closer to the ideal? How 
widely does one’s social responsibility extend? And how 
may those who are actuated by Christian motives be 
brought into most effective cooperation? This, of course, 
is simply to say that the great, all-comprehending enter¬ 
prise of the Church is the Kingdom of God, and that its 
all-inclusive problem is to bring to men a vision of the 
Kingdom and to arouse in them a purpose to strive co¬ 
operatively for its realization. 


CHAPTER V 


TEACHING THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION TO 
THE MODERN MAN 

Throughout our study of childhood and youth we 
have been insisting that education must be vitally related 
to the environment—physical, mental, and social—in 
which the lives of the scholars are lived. To the educa¬ 
tion of the adult, now to be considered, the same principle 
applies. We have to take into account the present- 
day influences, growing out of the state of society as a 
whole, in which modern men and women are placed and 
do their work. These influences, all too often over¬ 
looked, deeply concern the Christian Church, both because 
they directly affect those who are under its influence and 
also because they create new groups to whom it has a 
responsibility and whom it cannot really help except as it 
enters into the world in which they are living and under¬ 
stands the forces which have shaped their attitudes and 
thought. In the present chapter we shall take for granted 
many generally accepted phases of the work of the Church 
in fostering the moral and spiritual growth of adults and 
direct our attention to more neglected considerations. 

i. The Social Environment of the Modern Man 

Among the forces which have a determinative effect on 
modern life we may mention four as of special importance 
for our present purpose: (a) the development of science 
and invention, with the resulting mastery of nature; (b) 
the growth of economic and social interdependence; (c) 
the quest of moral and political democracy; (d) the 
divisive influence of race and nationality. 

108 


TEACHING CHRISTIAN RELIGION TO MAN 109 

(a) The Development of Science and the Mastery of 
Nature .—In a previous chapter we have had occasion to 
consider some of the indirect effects of the scientific 
movement upon religion, in the creation of a secular 
system of education from which the teaching of religion 
is wholly or in part banished. But there are other and 
more direct ways in which science affects the environment 
of the Church’s teaching. In three ways in particular 
this influence appears : in creating a new attitude of mind 
toward authority in all its forms, both religious and secu¬ 
lar; in bringing into existence a new body of knowledge 
which at some points renders necessary a readjustment of 
the Church’s teaching; and in changing the physical en¬ 
vironment of men by putting into their hands greatly 
enlarged powers over nature. 

More important than any changes in specific beliefs is 
the change brought about by modern science in men’s 
attitude of mind. For the older attitude of unquestioning 
belief it has substituted the critical spirit. It is true that 
there are multitudes of men who have not yet felt this 
change to any appreciable extent. It is further true that 
not a few who have experienced it in the rest of their 
intellectual life, have yet managed to retain unimpaired 
their old attitude of unquestioning submission in matters 
of religion. Nevertheless, for very large numbers of 
persons both in the Church and outside, what we call 
the scientific spirit has become their familiar mental habit. 
They have become accustomed to asking for the reasons 
for their beliefs. They are distrustful of all external 
authority, however ancient and responsible, and they see 
no reason why in the case of religion, the most important 
of all human interests, they should depart from a method 
which has so clearly proved its usefulness in other realms 
of knowledge. 

Anyone who plans an educational program for the 
Church must take account of this situation. Those who 
are influenced by the scientific spirit must be approached 


no THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 


by methods different from those which were efficacious 
with people who lived before the era of modern science. 

Modern science has not only created a new attitude of 
mind but has also brought into existence a body of knowl¬ 
edge which was not available when the older textbooks 
of religion were written. In the case of the physical 
sciences, the existence of this body of knowledge is gen¬ 
erally recognized. No one who visits the American 
Museum of Natural History, and sees the record of life 
as it is retold for him in the story of the species that pre¬ 
ceded man, can approach the study of the Bible with the 
presuppositions of the commentators who lived before 
Darwin was born or the theory of evolution had become 
familiar to every schoolboy. In other fields also far- 
reaching changes have taken place. In all the studies that 
are concerned with man’s spiritual history there has been 
notable activity. The history of religion has been re¬ 
studied in the light of archaeology and ethnology, and new 
material made accessible which older commentators did 
not possess. The Bible has been subjected to intense and 
critical study, with the result that most scholars believe 
that it has had a longer history and a more composite 
authorship than our fathers supposed. The history of the 
Christian Church and of its institutions has been rewrit¬ 
ten. Other faiths have been made familiar to us by the 
science of comparative religion. New sciences, like the 
psychology of religion, have been born and have devel¬ 
oped a vigorous life, and multitudes of people who have 
never thought of reading a theological treatise have found 
inspiration and stimulus in such a book as William James’ 
“Varieties of Religious Experience.” It is not a question 
whether we approve or disapprove these developments. 
The fact is that they have occurred and that we must 
shape our educational program accordingly. 

The most revolutionary of all the changes brought about 
by modern science is in the external environment in which 
the people who are to be taught are living. Science has 


TEACHING CHRISTIAN RELIGION TO MAN in 

so marvelously increased our powers over nature that one 
man can do with steam and electricity what a thousand 
men together could not have done a century ago. As a 
result vast changes have taken place in the habits of men 
and in their mental horizon. Space has been annihilated. 
Knowledge, or what passes as such, is made common 
property by the daily press. Great industries have arisen, 
made possible by the factory system with its large-scale 
production. Wealth has been multiplied and widely dis¬ 
tributed, but, side by side with this increase in general 
comfort, great fortunes have been accumulated in the 
hands of a little group of men, whose power to affect the 
destiny of their fellows has been enormously increased. 

Witnessing these amazing transformations, men have 
come to think of science as a sort of modern wizard, mak¬ 
ing all things possible, and the moral limitations of power, 
pure and simple, have been for the time obscured. These 
limitations the war has set in clearer light. Viewing the 
results of the application of scientific methods to warfare 
we see that science as such is merely neutral. By enlarg¬ 
ing our knowledge it has increased our power, but whether 
that power is to be used for good or ill, for the destruction 
or for the advancement of mankind, remains yet to 
be decided and is an inescapable problem for religion. 

(b) Growth of Economic and Social Interdependence . 
—A second factor of which the modern Christian educa¬ 
tor must take account is a result of the transformation 
thus briefly described, namely, the almost incredible 
growth of social and economic interdependence. This is 
a fact which is forced upon us by the most familiar 
happenings of every day, but to whose moral and spiritual 
significance we have not yet given the thought it deserves. 

The most impressive illustration of this interdependence 
is the modern industrial system. This has bound the 
peoples of the world together in an intricate mechanism of 
commerce, every dislocation of which produces disturbing 


112 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 


effects in the most unexpected quarters. A hundred years 
ago, indeed much later than this, it was possible for a 
family living on the soil in almost every country to be, 
for all practical purposes, economically independent. Now 
economic independence is a wholly impossible thing. 
The food we eat, the clothes we wear, the houses we live 
in, are provided for us by others, and those who thus 
cooperate in our support live literally at the ends of the 
earth. With the growth of modern industry specialization 
in labor goes on with ever-increasing intensity, and with 
specialization a corresponding increase in insecurity of 
employment. When each man is able to do only a single 
thing, and that as part of a large machine which he neither 
owns nor controls, he is helpless when for any reason the 
machine stops and no longer demands his services. He 
can no longer stay where he is and support himself by 
doing something else. If he is to find work he must go 
where work is, and this produces a constant shifting of 
population which breaks up home life and has all manner 
of other unfortunate spiritual consequences. 

The most serious of these for our present purpose is 
the change of spiritual attitude on the part of large masses 
of the people. Instead of feeling their responsibility to 
the place where they live or to the community as a whole, 
they acquire a spiritual aloofness which corresponds to 
their physical detachment. Their allegiance is not pri¬ 
marily to their own country or state, but to their fellow- 
workmen with whom they share their daily toil and in 
cooperation with whom alone they see any possibility of 
social betterment. So a class consciousness arises which 
sets labor against capital and often limits the application 
of the Christian principle of universal brotherhood to 
those of one’s own class. And this class consciousness 
is by no means confined to those who are in the ranks of 
labor. Employers generally act as a group in regarding 
the present system of control of industry as the only right 
one and in resenting any attempt on the part of the wage 


TEACHING CHRISTIAN RELIGION TO MAN 113 

earners to limit the employer’s control of his business as 
he alone sees fit. To modern capitalism, labor is a com¬ 
modity like coal or iron, to be bought in the cheapest 
market and discarded when its usefulness is exhausted. 
So men who are charitable and considerate to individuals 
in need become callous to the sufferings of men in the 
mass and regard any effort to change the present industrial 
system as an attack upon fundamental rights to be opposed 
to the uttermost. 

The effect of this attitude on the part of employers and 
workers and the public is to carry the war-spirit into 
industry. Competition up to the limits set by law is 
regarded as the normal law of business life, and any in¬ 
sistence that industry make earnest with the Christian 
ideals of cooperation and service is regarded as mixing 
two things that have to be kept apart. This state of 
things affects the Christian educator vitally. It makes it 
difficult for him to reach the ranks of organized labor 
directly, at least that part of it which has become class 
conscious, because they tend to think of the Church as a 
part of the existing order, defending things as they are. 
Even more serious is the fact that the atmosphere of 
strife creates a spiritual attitude which makes it more 
difficult everywhere to secure the acceptance of the 
Christian message, and, even when that message is ac¬ 
cepted, faces us with problems of practical application 
hard to solve but impossible to ignore. 

(c) The Quest of Moral and Political Democracy .— 
A third factor in the life of our time, of which the Chris¬ 
tian educator must take account, is the increasing number 
of men and women in all walks of life who insist on their 
right to be consulted as to the conditions of their own 
lives. We speak of our age as a democratic age, and by 
this we ordinarily refer to the political changes which are 
taking place in the forms of the world’s government—the 
growing increase in the power of the people over their rep- 


114 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 

resentatives, the passing of monarchies, the birth of new 
democracies, the trying of new and radical experiments 
in government. But the phenomenon in question is much 
more widespread than this. It meets us wherever men 
have to live and work together, in industry and in educa¬ 
tion, for example, quite as much as in politics. Every¬ 
where we find an increasing demand for freedom, side by 
side with an increased need for centralized and effective 
government. And this affects not only the conduct of 
men, but more and more their spiritual attitude. A fa¬ 
miliar illustration meets us in the world of industry. In 
the contest between capital and labor the real issue is 
rarely simply a matter of hours or of wages, but rather 
of the method by which the industry shall be controlled. 
The workers are insistent that they shall have a share in 
the management as well as in the rewards of industry, and 
the increasing recognition of the reasonableness of this 
desire is an impressive evidence of the extent to which 
the democratic spirit is making its presence felt. 

What is true in industry is true also in education. 
Here, too, the present tendency is to replace the older 
autocratic and dogmatic methods of instruction with a 
method in which the pupil is made responsible in part 
for his own educational development. The elective sys¬ 
tem, the wide use of the laboratory, and the emphasis on 
the project method are only a few among many indica¬ 
tions of this changed point of view. In considering the 
significance of this new democratic emphasis for religious 
education it is important to remember that we are not 
dealing simply with an educational problem as such, but 
with the application to religion and education of a human 
problem of far-reaching significance. 

The quest of political and moral democracy is not a 
phenomenon confined to Europe and America alone. It 
is world wide, meeting us as impressively in China and 
India as in countries nearer home. All over the world 
we find individuals and whole nations asserting their right 


TEACHING CHRISTIAN RELIGION TO MAN 115 

to self-determination and self-control. And here we meet 
another disturbing fact that sets a grave problem for the 
teacher of religion, the deep-rooted rivalry between aspir- 
ing groups separated by differences of race and of 
nationality. 

(d) The Factors of Race and of Nationality .—In the 
problem of the relation of the white people and the Ameri¬ 
can Negro we see an outstanding example of the difficul¬ 
ties raised by racial differences. Here is a group of 
nearly ten million people who in the eyes of the law are 
entitled to all the rights and privileges of American citi¬ 
zenship, yet who for all practical purposes are separated 
from their fellow Americans of white skin by an impass¬ 
able gulf. They may not inter-marry with them; in many 
parts of the country they may not travel with them; and 
what is still more significant, they may not study with 
them; they may not even worship with them. They have 
their own industries, their own schools, their own 
churches. Yet to our Christian faith they are our 
brother-men for whom Christ died, and with us heirs of 
the Kingdom of God. Among the persons to be included 
in the Church’s program of religious education are these 
ten million potential Christians, and among the subjects 
to be taught to black and white alike are the Christian 
principles which should determine the relation between 
the two races. 

Another factor which intensifies the problem of race is 
the difference in language. Among the immigrants who 
for the last generation have been pouring into this country 
are multitudes who do not speak English and who even 
after years of residence here still retain the tongue of the 
lands which gave them birth. The last figures of the 
United States’ census report the fact that about eleven 
million Christians in this country belong to Churches 
which conduct their services in whole or in part in 
languages other than English. Still further difficulties are 


ii6 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 


introduced in the case of those who come to us from 
countries which may have political differences with the 
United States, and who still retain their affection for the 
land of their birth. Illustrations in the public eye today 
are the Japanese on the west coast and the Mexicans pour¬ 
ing over the southern boundary into Texas and the neigh¬ 
boring states. All these factors of alien race, alien speech, 
and conflicting loyalties present a set of almost over¬ 
whelming problems in carrying out what is at once an 
educational and a missionary enterprise for the Church 
in America. 

When we pass from our own country altogether and 
begin to study the wider field of world politics, we find 
race rivalry everywhere on the horizon. The contention 
between Japan and China, between Korea and Japan, be¬ 
tween Greeks and Turks, Turks and Armenians, Magyars 
and Czechoslovaks, Germans and Poles—these are but a 
few of a multitude of illustrations which might be given. 
Rivalries of race are complicated by the further fact of 
nationality. Intense loyalty to the national group, sus¬ 
picion and distrust of other nations, economic rivalries to 
secure access to natural resources and markets, all the 
familiar aspects of modern international life which found 
their culmination in the slaughter of ten million young 
men in a single war, followed by conditions of peace that 
seem to be rapidly breeding future wars, give us a world 
in which the Christian ideal of the unity of mankind, 
which underlies the whole foreign missionary program 
of the Church, seems only hollow mockery. 

To work for the Christian ideal for society with any 
hope of success we must understand the obstacles to which 
it is exposed. Included, therefore, in any adequate pro¬ 
gram of Christian education for modern men and women 
must be a study of the present-day facts of class, race, and 
nationality, the meaning of Christianity for these great 
phases of our social life and the ways in which Christian 
influences can be effectively brought to bear upon them. 


TEACHING CHRISTIAN RELIGION TO MAN 117 


2. Consequences for the Educational Task of the 
Church 

In the present attitude of suspicion and fear between 
class and class, nation and nation, race and race, with the 
substitution of lesser loyalties for the Kingdom of God, 
there is no hope for modern civilization. To persuade 
men that there is a better way of life and to create in them 
the will to follow it, is the task of Christian education. 

What is needed to hold the world together is religion, 
not some vague religion of aspiration and good-will born 
yesterday and untested by experience, but one which is 
rooted in deep-seated convictions concerning the nature of 
God and His plan for the universe. Without such a 
unifying faith in a beneficent Purpose for the world, it 
is hopeless to expect the social salvation for which we 
long. This unifying faith comes to us through Jesus 
Christ. Here is the one possible integrating force for 
modern democracy. It is the responsibility of the Church 
to show convincingly that this is so. In order to accom¬ 
plish this she must, in the first place, interpret to her own 
people the meaning of the Gospel for the perplexing situa¬ 
tions in the modern world in which they live, and, in the 
second place, present the Gospel to those now outside the 
Church’s influence in such a compelling fashion as to 
win them to allegiance to Christ and His way of life. 

(a) The Church as Interpreter of the Gospel to the 
Growing Christian .—In order that the Church may be 
able to interpret the meaning of the Gospel to her own 
people so that they shall be able to play their part worthily 
as Christians in the concrete situations which they daily 
face, it is necessary for us to take account of two different 
groups of problems, independent but closely related. 
There are, first, the problems which are concerned with 
the fundamental convictions in which the Christian ethical 
ideal is rooted, and, secondly, those which have to do with 


ii8 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 


the application of the ethical ideal of Christianity to 
baffling conditions of modern life. 

Even in the comparatively simple task of holding up the 
fundamental Christian convictions the environment in 
which his teaching must be done sets the Christian teacher 
peculiar problems. He must interpret the nature of Chris¬ 
tian faith to men who have been brought under the influ¬ 
ence of the scientific spirit, and this influence acts differ¬ 
ently in the case of different men. On the one hand, we 
find men to whom the acceptance both of the methods and 
of the results of modern scientific thinking has become a 
matter of course. They accept reason as the natural 
method of arriving at the truth, and growth as the normal 
law of life. They find difficulty with the entire conception 
of miracle and the supernatural, and question whether it is 
any longer possible for them honestly to accept the creeds 
which were written by men who did not share this larger 
knowledge. On the other hand, we find men to whom the 
whole scientific attitude is disturbing. Brought up to 
identify religion with simple and unquestioning belief, 
they regard the attitude of many modern men to the Bible 
as dangerous, not to say irreligious. They are convinced 
that to retain the hold of the Gospel upon the allegiance 
of men all attempts to modernize its form must be 
resisted. 

To each of these kinds of men the Christian teacher has 
a duty. It is that of interpreting them to one another. 
To the man who accepts the scientific view of the world 
it is the teacher’s office to show that this view leaves un¬ 
touched all the deeper issues with which religion is con¬ 
cerned. As science itself lives by faith and has reared its 
majestic structure by unquestioning trust in the consist¬ 
ency of nature and the meaningfulness of life, so in the 
deeper questions where the methods of science break 
down, it is reasonable still to follow the same guide, and 
in the mysterious power whose processes science studies 
to discern the God and Father of our Lord and Saviour 


TEACHING CHRISTIAN RELIGION TO MAN 119 

Jesus Christ. For those, on the other hand, who find the 
scientific attitude disturbing, the modern Christian teacher 
also has a task. He must remind them of the many 
changes which have taken place in the view of the world 
since Jesus lived, and of the fact that His Gospel has 
survived them all. He must point out the limitations of 
science, which deals with methods and causes rather than 
with ultimate realities, and show how in its own way it 
brings confirmation of Christian truth. He must show 
that in the Christian experience we have a ground for 
faith which science cannot shake and that in this 
experience we have a point of contact with men whose 
theoretical opinions may be very different from our own. 

Thus on both sides it is the Christian teacher’s privilege 
to act as a reconciler. He reminds both liberal and con¬ 
servative that what they hold in common is far more than 
that in which they differ, and that in spite of all the 
changes in our changeful world the purpose of God for 
mankind, His revelation in Christ, the presence of His 
spirit, the power of the Cross, the possibility of salva¬ 
tion from sin, the coming of the Kingdom of Love in 
human society, the hope of immortality, are still unchang¬ 
ing realities. In the insistent demands of Christian 
service he helps them to discover a unity of spirit and 
purpose in which all lesser differences can be reconciled. 

Still more difficult is the Christian teacher’s second 
problem—the application of the ethical ideal, to which all 
Christians are alike committed, to various phases of our 
modern life. What follows, for the Christian view of man 
and of his duty, from the complex situations with which 
the modern world confronts us? How far is the Chris¬ 
tian committed by his faith in Christ to a particular kind 
of social order and what is his responsibility for realizing 
that ideal in detail ? In particular, how far is it necessary, 
or legitimate, for the Church to express a definite judg¬ 
ment in matters in controversy in the field of economics 
or politics? What does faith in Christ require of the 


120 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 


individual Christian in his personal capacity as employer 
or employe, officeholder or voter, investor or consumer, 
patriot or citizen of the world? These are questions 
which earnest Christians are asking themselves every day. 
What attitude is the Church to take toward them in her 
official teaching? 

In other volumes of this series we have attempted to 
study some of these problems of application. Especially 
worthy of note for the Christian teacher, in view of the 
importance and difficulty of the subject discussed, is the 
volume on “The Church and Industrial Reconstruction.’' 
In this volume certain general principles have been laid 
down which apply in other fields than that of industry and 
which it may be worth while for us here briefly to recall. 
In the first place, it is maintained that the Church cannot 
but be concerned with industrial and economic questions 
because they bear directly upon those human values with 
which the Gospel has to do. Such principles as the value 
of every personality for God, the brotherhood of man, and 
the duty of service are of the very essence of the Gospel 
of Christ and cannot be ignored in any aspect of life by 
the Church which professes to speak in His name. In the 
second place, the attempt is made to distinguish between 
those Christian duties which all men of good-will must 
recognize as soon as they know the facts, and that disputed 
territory of theory in which men equally honest and sin¬ 
cere may differ. While it is the duty of each individual 
to follow his conscience wherever it may carry him, it is 
clear that the Church, as a corporate teaching body, must 
center her instruction around matters on which there 
is a fair agreement among thoughtful Christians as to 
what Christianity requires. At the same time the Church 
must also be the free home of prophets who live ahead of 
their age and lead the people on to insights and duties 
hitherto unrecognized. 

In the third place, the effort is made in this study to 
give concrete illustrations of the application of the prin- 


TEACHING CHRISTIAN RELIGION TO MAN 121 

ciples laid down in order that the modes of action recom¬ 
mended may be such as have already proved practicable 
by use. Finally, the distinction is made between the 
Christian ideal for society and the Christian way of 
realizing that ideal. It is pointed out that the presence of 
men in society who do not hold the Christian faith or 
accept the Christian ideal often makes it necessary for 
the Christian in his capacity as citizen or man of business 
to choose the better of two possible alternatives, even if 
neither completely realizes the Christian ideal. And it is 
insisted that such action, however legitimate as a tem¬ 
porary expedient, must always be recognized for what it 
is, as a step toward the Christian goal, never as that goal 
itself, and that as long as society remains the imperfect 
and incomplete thing it is today, it must be the duty of 
the Church to point out its inadequacy and to insist that 
only through the complete acceptance of the Christian law 
of faith and love can the ideal be realized. 

(b) The Church as Interpreter of the Gospel to the 
Man Outside .—Thus far we have been considering chiefly 
the Church’s responsibility for those who are already 
under its influence. But there is another aspect of its 
work which we cannot ignore, and that is its duty to 
interpret the Christian Gospel to those individuals or 
groups who do not accept it. This is a problem not only 
of reaching the persons who are wholly outside the Church 
but also of reaching with the influence of the Gospel those 
who already accept it so far as their own personal lives 
are concerned but who do not yet see its meaning for the 
relations of men in organized social groups. Millions of 
men who acknowledge the claim of the Gospel in certain 
realms of life do not yet think of it as having any practical 
bearing upon the principles which should control an in¬ 
dustrial corporation, a chamber of commerce, a trade 
union, or a government. Many a man who is a Christian 
in his family life follows a very different way of life as 


122 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 


director in a steel corporation, organizer of a textile- 
workers’ union, political party leader, or prime minister 
of a state. 

We can get light on this most difficult of all the 
Church’s present problems by considering the situation on 
the foreign field. Here the primary work of the Christian 
teacher is with persons who have grown up in non- 
Christian surroundings and who approach the problems of 
life without sharing the Christian presuppositions. Much 
of his time is taken up in finding points of contact with 
their life for his own distinctive message, and in finding 
words and ideas which will convey his meaning to their 
minds. An eminent Chinese missionary spent most of his 
life in making a dictionary of Chinese philosophical terms 
because he was persuaded that without the aid of the most 
exact phraseology it would be impossible for the Christian 
teacher to convey the Christian beliefs about God and 
Jesus Christ to educated Chinese in such a way that they 
would be fairly understood. Much the same situation 
meets us at home in the case of multitudes of people who, 
so far as their appreciation of Christian principles is 
concerned, are practically “heathen.” The task of the 
Christian educator is to find out who these people are, to 
gain a point of contact with them, and to discover the 
language through which the message of the Gospel may 
be conveyed to their minds. 

This problem concerns, in part, those who are already 
in other educational institutions, the public schools and 
the universities, where we face the fact of a secularized 
education and the problem it presents. But we are here 
thinking primarily of groups which are not so easily ac¬ 
cessible through the Church’s more ordinary channels, 
such groups as the labor unions, the radical organizations 
in our society, the chambers of commerce, manufacturers’ 
associations, and other organs of business, and the vari¬ 
ous philanthropic and charitable associations. These, 
with the press which they use and largely control, are the 


TEACHING CHRISTIAN RELIGION TO MAN 123 

organs through which public opinion is formed and with 
which, therefore, those must concern themselves who be¬ 
lieve that the Church has a gospel for society and com¬ 
mands forces which should be mobilized for the welfare 
of the race. 

The reason why the Church’s educational program 
should take account of these groups is the fact that they 
are becoming, in an ever-increasing degree, educational 
agencies. Partly unconsciously, partly of set purpose, 
they are forming the attitudes and beliefs of men and 
shaping their activities. In the case of the labor move¬ 
ment, this is definitely and deliberately the case. How 
far this is true of employers’ associations and other organs 
of the business world it is not so easy to say; but cer¬ 
tainly it is a fact that, whether consciously or uncon¬ 
sciously, in these organizations and others like them we 
have agencies which are carrying on an educational work, 
in the wider sense of the term, and which, therefore, we 
cannot ignore. We must include in our educational pro¬ 
gram some provision for interpreting to organized groups 
outside the Church the meaning of Christianity for their 
life. To this subject we shall turn in the following 
chapter. 


CHAPTER VI 

CHRISTIANIZING PUBLIC OPINION 

Thus far in our study we have been thinking of the 
Church as the teacher of the individual. Men and women, 
children and youth, who are in some way associated with 
the Church so that its influence can be brought directly 
to bear upon their lives, have been regarded as the objects 
of its educational effort. Some form of a definite teacher- 
pupil relationship has been constantly in our minds. 

But there are millions of men who will never sit in our 
pews, whose children will never attend our Sunday 
Schools, with whom no formal relationship of teacher- 
pupil is possible. They do not care to be taught about 
Christianity; either they do not understand it or are 
indifferent to it. What is the Church, as a teacher, to do 
for them ? Approximately 60 per cent, of our population 
are not members of any Church, Protestant, Catholic, or 
Jewish. Probably less than 25 per cent, of the people of 
an average community attend church or Sunday School 
on a given Sunday. If they will not come to us to be 
consciously taught, we must in some way go to them. 
Somehow we must get the Christian ideals into media that 
do reach them—those media which, like the daily press, 
for example, are unconsciously teaching all the people all 
the while—so that indirectly, if not directly, they may be 
learning what Christianity means for the world. 

Even in the case of those whom we are already reaching 
through our direct teaching, we need always to remember 
that there are other “educational” influences, more vague 
but no less powerful, constantly at work upon them. 
All the social environment in which the individual lives is, 

124 


CHRISTIANIZING PUBLIC OPINION 125 

for good or ill, having its potent effect in making him 
what he is to become. It so conditions his living and so 
affects the development of his character that in order to 
make our Christian teaching effective we must give a 
Christian direction to these forces which determine our 
national attitudes, our economic assumptions, our social 
standards, all the controlling ideas of modern civilization. 
A Church which should think only of the individual and 
give no direct attention to the social environment would 
be like a physician who should try to bring a tubercular 
convalescent to sturdy health without choosing for him 
a climate conducive to that end. 

These accepted customs, these prevailing attitudes, these 
general standards of thought and conduct, these current 
social viewpoints, we call public opinion. This it is which 
largely determines the character of our community life 
and our social organization, and so is a mighty educational 
force, either supporting or blocking the efforts which the 
Church is making in behalf of individuals. In order to 
train a single individual to be Christian we need to Chris¬ 
tianize public opinion. There is no factor that counts for 
more in shaping his decisions. It is hardly too much to 
say that public opinion is the most powerful “educator” 
in our modern world. 

The task of Christian education, then, is not simply one 
of converting more individuals; it is more even than a 
more effective teaching of individuals as to what it means 
to be a Christian. It cannot stop short of a definite un¬ 
dertaking to Christianize the public opinion which is 
responsible for the social structure in which the individual 
has his being, and which always makes it either easier 
or harder for the individual to be a Christian in the 
daily relationships of life. How often this public opinion 
is molded by selfish forces for selfish ends we know all too 
well. The practical question for the Church is, are we to 
allow public opinion to be an opposing influence or are we 


126 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 

to capture it for Christianity and make it a great evan¬ 
gelistic and educational force? 

i. The Wider Teaching Mission of the Church 

This public opinion is not simply the sum of the 
opinions of individuals. To some extent at least it is an 
organic thing—a group attitude which would not exist 
except for the relationship of individuals to each other 
and their reactions upon each other in unconscious ways. 
For society itself is not made up of independent individ¬ 
uals, and nothing more. A social group is not merely 
the totality of its separate members. When they become 
associated with one another in a common life, a plus 
element has entered in. By virtue of their interplay with 
one another they become other than they would ever 
be as unrelated units. There results a social conscience 
and a social will which are something more than a 
mathematical addition of individual consciences and 
wills. If anyone questions this, let him recall how war¬ 
time propaganda developed a social atmosphere which 
swept hosts of individuals into making decisions that 
apart from the group-spirit they would never have made. 
Or let him think of a crowd to whom the suggestion of 
lynching a black man has been made. The members do as 
a collective body what not one of them would ever do on 
his own independent initiative. What happens in an 
intense degree in war-time or in the action of the mob is, 
in considerable measure, happening all the time. Men in 
groups are not the same men that they would be as sepa¬ 
rate individuals. Through their relationships with one 
another they develop types of activity and of thought 
which gradually become standards for the group and are 
transmitted from one generation to another. 

It is difficult to exaggerate the extent of the influence 
of society in standardizing the activities and the beliefs 
of its members. In the first place, the life of everyone 


CHRISTIANIZING PUBLIC OPINION 


127 


is conditioned by the kind of civilization into which 
he is born. In the second place, he is dependent, at 
every turn thereafter, on what his fellows have done and 
are doing now. The very language which he uses is a 
social institution that he himself did not create. Hosts 
of his presuppositions and habits and modes of action 
come to him as a part of his social heritage rather than 
as the result of any reasoning process of his own. What 
the individual himself achieves and what he receives from 
the social medium in which he moves are so interwoven 
that it is quite impossible to extricate the one from the 
other. Society, in a word, makes its members quite as 
much as they make society. While we are trying to edu¬ 
cate the individual to the Christian way of living, existing 
social and economic arrangements which give the rewards 
to those who selfishly compete for private advantage are 
subtly and powerfully educating him in an unchristian 
attitude toward life. To teach the Fatherhood of God 
and the oneness of the human family by text book and by 
word of mouth, while unbrotherly inequalities of oppor¬ 
tunity are teaching the opposite, will be to sow good seed 
on stony ground. To proclaim the motive of service in 
Sunday School and pulpit will not carry us far if the 
industrial world, in which men spend the greater part of 
their waking hours, is organized around the idea that the 
way to succeed is to grab as much as you can for your¬ 
self. No one can be wholly a Christian so long as he is 
bound up with an unchristian, or partly Christianized, 
social order. 

The realization of this truth in earlier centuries drove 
the most devoted spirits into monasteries in order that 
there, apart from opposing influences, they might live 
under conditions that required no compromise with an 
unchristian world. The day of the monastery has gone, 
but the conditions against which it was a protest remain 
and must be dealt with by the Church in some positive 
way. For Christian discipleship can never be merely a 


128 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 


matter between an isolated individual soul and God. The 
individual exists and has meaning only in society. The 
minister who at an ecclesiastical gathering protested that 
he wanted “the Church to keep entirely away from politi¬ 
cal issues, away from industrial questions, away from 
international problems, and to confine itself to teaching 
the Kingdom of God,” was proceeding on the utterly 
false assumption that the Kingdom of God can consist of 
souls dwelling in a social vacuum. 

Here, to take a concrete example, is a conscientious 
employer who earnestly desires to organize his whole 
business establishment around what he sees to be the 
principles of Jesus. He does not want to treat labor as a 
“commodity,” to be bought at the lowest possible figure, 
like coal or cotton. He has come to see labor as human 
personalities, meant for all the fulness of life which he 
enjoys. He does not want his industry to have as its 
organizing principle a ruthless competition in profit¬ 
taking. He wants it really to be an expression of brother¬ 
hood. But when he attempts to put his principles into 
practise he finds that what he himself can do, in shorten¬ 
ing hours, increasing wages, or preventing unemployment, 
is limited by the competitive system of which he is in 
spite of himself a part. Many things, of course, he can do 
independently, but other things he can do only if they are 
practised more widely throughout the industry as a whole; 
else he will too greatly imperil his own continuance in 
business and so stand in the very way of the service which 
a successful and socially operated industry can render. 
He finds, in other words, that he cannot be a Christian in 
business, in the full sense, until business itself is organized 
on Christian standards. 

Of every one of us it is true that we cannot be absolutely 
Christian in our living so long as we are members of a 
social order not yet built on a Christian basis. If I invest 
my modest savings in industrial stocks, my generous 
dividends may be meaning to those who actually produce 


CHRISTIANIZING PUBLIC OPINION 


129 


them less than a decent wage. In this way I contribute 
to their poverty, for which I thought they were them¬ 
selves solely responsible. Indeed, for the citizen the 
choice is not often the wholly Christian versus the un¬ 
christian course. When competitive armaments have 
culminated in war the only possibility is to choose the less 
unchristian alternative—either fight reluctantly for the 
less guilty side or withhold support from both alike, re¬ 
gardless of the balance of right and wrong. Even if one 
tries to choose the latter path, he cannot entirely do so, 
for simply to pay taxes or till the soil is to contribute to 
the nation’s success in arms. From such situations there 
is, individually, no escape. The one way out is to arouse 
a social conscience and a public sentiment that will break 
through the inertia of inherited arrangements and set 
to rebuilding our social organization along better lines. 

The Church, then, in addition to working for indi¬ 
viduals, one by one, must find ways of Christianizing 
public opinion concerning many generally accepted cus¬ 
toms and conventions of the people as a whole. While 
never abating for a moment its energy in laying the in¬ 
dispensable foundation of Christian hearts and wills in 
those whom it can directly reach in its own schools and 
congregations, it must, at the same time, be holding the 
Christian ideal before the social group as a whole. We 
must do not only what social workers call “case work”— 
that is, deal with instances of individual need—but also 
“mass work.” We must educate the general public to 
the necessity of changing the conditions out of which 
wrong attitudes and wrong actions naturally spring. 1 In 
the problem of health, for example, who today fails to 
recognize the importance not only of curing individual 
patients but also of eradicating the causes of disease that 

1 For the fuller development of the comparison see F. E. John¬ 
son’s “The Social Gospel and Personal Religion.” Association 
Press, 1922. 



130 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 

lurk in impure milk, lack of sunshine, or undrained 
swamps ? 

In a notable achievement in which the Church played 
Jjie most important part—the prohibition of the liquor 
traffic—we have an illuminating example in the moral 
and religious realm of what we may call “mass work” in 
contrast with “case work.” The old method of working 
for temperance was to instruct the individual as to the 
evils of strong drink and induce him to sign a pledge. 
Yet at the very time when we were trying to make the 
man temperate we were leaving him unnecessarily ex¬ 
posed to the attack of a saloon on every corner. Today 
we undertake not only to teach the individual the value 
of abstinence but also to secure a social environment in 
which it will be reasonably normal for him to abstain. 
We found, to repeat a suggestive epigram, that it is neces¬ 
sary not only to keep the man away from the liquor but 
to keep the liquor away from the man. 

The method of approach illustrated by the legal prohi¬ 
bition of the liquor traffic could be paralleled in many 
other social fields. How was duelling abolished? Not 
by converting duellers one by one, but by a great awaken¬ 
ing of the social conscience. Was slavery abolished simply 
by persuading slave owners to free their slaves? No; it 
was necessary to bring about a different form of economic 
organization. Turn now to existing phases of social evil 
—lynching, for example, participated in often by “Chris¬ 
tian” people. Shall we get rid of it by converting indi¬ 
vidual lynchers? Must we not rather organize public 
opinion against it so strongly that lynching will no longer 
be tolerated by a community? Or child labor? Can we 
hope to eliminate it solely by winning employers one by 
one to fuller discipleship to Christ? Must we not also 
pass laws which will make the exploitation of children for 
private profit more difficult and which will ensure that the 
employer who does not want to make money at the ex- 




CHRISTIANIZING PUBLIC OPINION 


131 

pense of little children will not be forced into unequal 
competition with the ruthless and unscrupulous? 

We have referred to legislation as the means through 
which the aroused public mind may make itself effective. 
This is, no doubt, the most obvious way, but it is by no 
means the only one. Quite apart from the question of 
legal enactments there is also the possibility of crystalliz¬ 
ing public opinion into ideas and ideals which gain such 
power as to become a part of the generally accepted social 
code. When a social atmosphere is created so that masses 
of men think the same thing at the same time—an educa¬ 
tional result which the Government achieved in a remark¬ 
able degree in war time—the effects of social inheritance 
are often materially modified. 

The necessity for the creation of public opinion for the 
outlawing of war will serve as an illustration of what we 
mean when we are speaking of this wider educational 
responsibility of the Church. After the Sunday School 
has done all that the most exacting educator could expect 
of it in training its children in the Christian way of life, 
after the Christian college has performed its task of en¬ 
larging the social outlook of the Christian youth who 
come to its halls, even after the agencies of missionary 
education have developed an international mind and a 
desire for world service, there is still left a tremendous 
task for Christian education if war is actually to be abol¬ 
ished. The facts concerning the staggering cost of arma¬ 
ment, the inevitable consequences of suspicion, distrust, 
and ill-will which “preparedness” produces, the subtle 
connection between war and the economic exploitation of 
backward people, the need for building up the interna¬ 
tional agencies and institutions that will serve as a substi¬ 
tute method of obtaining security and justice—all these 
and other factors must be brought home to the citizens 
as a whole. The general ideal of brotherhood taught 
in Sunday School and pulpit must be analyzed in its 
application to concrete and specific issues and actually 


132 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 

brought to bear upon them. What does brotherhood 
demand in our relations with Europe? Or in our treat¬ 
ment of the Japanese in California in view of complex 
economic and social considerations involved? Or in our 
relations with Haiti ? Or in the contacts of the white and 
the Negro races ? To secure a Christian solution of such 
questions as these requires us to come to grips with the 
great organs by which contemporary public opinion is 
formed. For it is a question of hazing not only Chris¬ 
tian motives but also a clear discernment as to what those 
motives require in a given situation, and practical zmsdom 
as to how our good-zvill may be made effective in stirring 
the social group, in its corporate capacity, to appropriate 
action. 

The Churches, in a word, must “go into the business of 
creating an effective public conscience regarding all rela¬ 
tions of individuals, classes, nations, and races. The cry 
of the world is for the Christian Churches to go into this 
business at once. If the world is to be saved for Chris¬ 
tianity, the Churches must soon become more effectively 
organized for the guidance and control of public opinion. 
Only thus can a Christian environment be created for the 
nurture of Christian character.” 2 

2. How the Church Can Influence Public Opinion 

At the present time whole groups are touched by our 
teaching agencies only in a pitifully fragmentary way. 
There is, to take but a single illustration, the great move¬ 
ment of organized labor, coming rapidly to self-conscious¬ 
ness and destined to play a large part in whatever social 
changes may take place, yet, generally speaking, indif¬ 
ferent to the Church. There are, on the other hand, the 

*C. A. Ellwood, “The Reconstruction of Religion,” Macmillan, 
1922. The closing chapter should be read entire in connection 
with this discussion of the relation of the Church to Public 
Opinion. 



CHRISTIANIZING PUBLIC OPINION 133 

great organizations of capital. Plow are we to reach these 
groups, now largely unreached so far as group-action is 
concerned ? Only by influencing somehow the factors 
which are now molding their attitude on public questions. 

What are these factors? First of all, as we have al¬ 
ready intimated, the public press. Here is a powerful, 
almost incredibly powerful, agency which is shaping the 
social outlook of the vast majority of men. Only one 
person out of four may go to Church on Sunday, but all 
four read the newspaper almost every day. According to 
the “World Almanac” for 1923 the daily circulation of 
American newspapers in the large cities alone is over 
33,000,000. This includes only dailies and only papers 
printed in English. Weekly and monthly papers and 
periodicals have a total circulation of 200,000,000 per 
issue. These printed pages are, for good or ill, a tre¬ 
mendous educational force. It is hardly too much to say 
that the sympathies and prejudices of most men are 
affected by the press more than by any other single factor. 
Every day it is teaching the whole nation! 

Yet how far does the point of view of the Christian 
Church find expression therein? On the day when the 
writer was outlining this chapter he scrutinized, as an 
experiment, the pages of one of the outstanding news¬ 
papers in America. Out of 84 columns, exclusive of ad¬ 
vertising, only a little over a single column had to do 
with the Church or with religion. When another great 
daily some months ago published a complete list of its 
staff, occupying no less than four columns, it appeared 
that while there were men assigned to cover politics, 
sports, literature, drama, finance, military affairs, science, 
fashions, the courts, and almost every conceivable human 
interest, not a single man was assigned to religion and the 
Churches. Either their work was not presented at all, or 
else it was handled not by one especially trained but by 
some casual reporter. So far as this mighty agency of 


134 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 


public opinion is concerned, the influence of the Church is 
all but negligible. 

The reasons are not far to seek. One reason—a com¬ 
mendable one—is the reluctance of the Church to use the 
methods of the “press agent” and the propagandist. But 
there are less creditable reasons. It must be confessed 
that such meager efforts as the Churches have made to 
secure a hearing in the daily press have been too centered 
about such purely private and selfish matters as filling 
their pews or advertising conventional “activities.” Too 
little attention has been devoted to interpreting to the out¬ 
side public what Christianity really means as a way of life 
in the modern world. The chief reason, however, for 
our ill success with the press lies in the fact that the 
Church has failed to realize how great a missionary 
opportunity is here presented and to devise the means by 
which it can avail itself of it. We have not thought of 
the press as a great agency of evangelism and religious 
education. 

Another far-reaching influence in molding the opinion 
of the rank and file whom the Church is not teaching di¬ 
rectly through pulpit, Sunday School or Christian Asso¬ 
ciation is the recreational life of the community. A single 
phase will suggest the immensity of the problem—the mo¬ 
tion picture house. That practically the whole civilized 
world goes- to the movies and that children and young 
people—those in the most formative period of life—attend 
with regularity is a fact of tremendous consequence. 
Careful investigations in several cities have shown that 
about nine-tenths of the boys and girls of school age 
go to the movies. Statistics of attendance at theaters in 
the United States, given out by the motion picture indus¬ 
try, indicate that in every ten-day period the attendance 
is almost as great as the total population. Here, then, is 
an agency which reaches vastly more people than the 
Church and even in the case of those reached by the 
Church generally has them for more hours per week and 


CHRISTIANIZING PUBLIC OPINION 135 

brings to their minds and hearts the more vivid appeal 
of the eye. 

Why should the Church not utilize this unique oppor¬ 
tunity of interpreting the meaning of Christianity and 
the work of the Church to groups that we now are quite 
failing to touch ? Yet how seldom does the screen depict 
any of the great social and humanitarian achieve¬ 
ments which Christianity has inspired! When has the 
noble life-work of Grenfell among the fisher folk of 
Labrador been shown? Or the redemption of the New 
Hebrides by John G. Paton? Or the work of Hampton 
or Tuskegee Institutes in helping a race up from slavery ? 
Surely here are great themes, the human interest of 
which is apparent as soon as they are suggested. The 
setting and dramatic value of any one of these, and 
hosts of others, would satisfy Rex Beach himself. And 
their message could inspire multitudes, who hardly ever 
hear of missionary effort, with something of the Chris¬ 
tian motive of service to mankind. Yet the film is not 
so used. In the earlier centuries the Church was the 
foster mother of the drama, the mystery play being its 
direct creation. Why is there now no contact between 
the Church and the widespread form of drama repre¬ 
sented by the screen? Largely, no doubt because of the 
short-sighted policies of motion picture producers. But 
that is hardly the whole story. What have the agencies 
of the Churches done to secure points of contacts with 
the producers of pictures, to present to them the possi¬ 
bilities of making great contributions to social welfare 
through this educational medium which reaches the mind 
of millions who do not darken the doors of the Church? 

Under our present disjointed denominationalism it is- 
very difficult to devise means of securing adequate 
contacts with powerful agencies like the press, or the 
motion-picture industry. First, because a single denomi¬ 
nation usually does not have the resources to maintain 
an agency of interpretation sufficiently expert to com- 


136 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 

mand the attention of as highly organized concerns as 
the great newspaper offices; secondly, and more important, 
because the voice of many Churches does not appear to 
he the voice of the Church at all. At best it seems only 
the opinion of a certain party or special group within 
the Church and so does not have the weight or significance 
to give it journalistic value or to impress the public with 
the fact that the Christian conception of life and duty is 
a mighty force in society. As things are now it is a 
“Presbyterian” missionary effort, a “Methodist” Con¬ 
ference, or a “Baptist” educational movement that is re¬ 
ported in the press, and as a result the fundamental char¬ 
acter of Christianity, as a distinctive way of life, set over 
against much of the life of the world, is not presented in 
any convincing way. 

If the Church is to succeed in using such educational 
agencies as these for the forming of public opinion along 
Christian lines, some way must be found of bringing the 
combined impact of the whole Church to bear upon the 
public mind. Christians will have to find a common 
voice that will really be regarded as expressing the thought 
of the Church. For practical purposes there is now no 
such thing as “the Chprch,” a single organization which 
can give united expression to the sentiment and judgment 
of the followers of Christ. There are rather Churches* 
separated units, most of the time going their way with¬ 
out much relation to each other, and as a result the moral 
leadership which the one Church of Christ might exer¬ 
cise is weakened and dissipated. So the question of 
Christian education, in this wider sense, is simply insep¬ 
arable from the question of Christian unity. 

The “unhappy divisions of Christendom” are not simply 
a sentimental concern; they touch, and touch vitally, the 
power of the Church to hold the Christian ideal before 
the world. When it is a question of reaching the powerful 
agencies and movements outside the Churches, there are 
many tasks which we cannot do at all unless we can do 


CHRISTIANIZING PUBLIC OPINION 


137 

them together. In war time this was conspicuously true. 
Then contacts of the Church with the Government itself, 
with governmental agencies, and with great social organi¬ 
zations like the Red Cross were a necessity. Yet forces 
so united as these governmental and semi-governmental 
agencies would not, could not be expected, to maintain 
contact with scores of denominations separately; nor 
could any single denomination, apart from the others, 
make a strong enough appeal to these agencies to claim 
their serious attention. Consequently the denominations 
found it necessary to function together, at least in certain 
tasks, through the cooperative agency known as the Gen¬ 
eral War-Time Commission of the Churches, created by 
the Federal Council. But what was obviously true then is 
as true now in the case of our relations with great social 
forces like the daily press, the motion picture industry, 
the labor movement, or chambers of commerce. To reach 
them in any effective way with positive Christian influ¬ 
ences, it is imperative to find methods by which the Church 
can come with the sum total of its strength. Any lack of 
unity weakens not only the Church’s efficiency but also 
its moral authority in presenting the Christian ideal to 
the world. Some means we must have of putting behind 
the Christian message the consolidated power which comes 
from singleness of aim and united expression. The 
trouble today in the approach of the churches to the pub¬ 
lic, it has been well said, is that “each Church is like a 
musician in possession of a distinctive instrument. The 
instrument may be excellent, and the musician may be 
playing it well, but the effect is not orchestral At best 

it suggests just the tuning up.” 3 

But even if we can secure a common voice, have we a 
common mind ? To have an instrument of united expres¬ 
sion would be of little consequence if we have nothing 

• Francis J. McConnell, "‘Public Opinion and Theology,” Abing¬ 
don Press, 1920, p. 194 - 



138 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 

on which we agree sufficiently to be able to speak . 4 To 
such general principles as brotherhood and love, all Chris¬ 
tians, of course, give assent. But when we try to apply 
these principles to any of the concrete moral issues on 
which the world needs guidance from the Church, how 
much consensus of judgment do we find? Often even the 
facts, on which judgment must be based, are not known. 
Take our present industrial situation. We all want a 
more brotherly social life, but what do we know about 
the actual facts of our present world—about the extent 
and causes of unemployment, about the inadequacy of 
income of the rank and file of wage-earners, about the 
good and ill of labor-unions, about the effects of economic 
competition, and a host of other questions ? A few people 
know the facts. A few see clearly the issues at stake. 
But till Christians in general share this knowledge and 
this insight the needed unity will be unattainable. Ob¬ 
viously we must have not only an organ of collective 
utterance but also an organ of collective thinking. We 
need the most patient analysis and study of the social 
issues that confront the Church, so thorough that it will, 
first of all, win the assent of the Church as a whole, and, 
as a consequence, be able to command the attention and 
the solid respect of the outside world. 


3. Beginning to Deal with the Problem 

Such facts as these give significance to a body like the 
Committee on the War and the Religious Outlook, con¬ 
stituted before the close of the war by the Federal Coun¬ 
cil of the Churches and the General War-Time Commis¬ 
sion. For the distinctive thing about it was simply 
this, that its one purpose was collective thinking. The 
representatives of the various denominations that com- 

4 Cf. William Adams Brown, “The Church in America,” Chap¬ 
ter XVI, Macmillan, 1922. 





CHRISTIANIZING PUBLIC OPINION 139 

prised it set for themselves no other task than to study 

and to study together —some of the more difficult prob¬ 
lems confronting the Church. Their work showed clearly 
that “the final result of working things out together is 
more than the sum of what the same individuals could 
reach working alone.” But the kind of group thinking 
which it applied for a time to a few problems needs to be 
carried on continuously and in relation to other great 
social issues—our international and our interracial re¬ 
lations, for example—on which Christian public opinion 
must be formed. A distinguished British economist, com¬ 
menting on the work of the Committee on the War and 
the Religious Outlook, went to the heart of the matter 
when he declared that a permanent “thinking depart¬ 
ment” of the Churches is a necessity if it is to grip the 
public mind effectively. His words are worth quoting 
at length: 

“One lays down even so admirable a document as this 
report [on “The Church and Industrial Reconstruction”] 
with some uncertainty as to what its effect will be. And 
that feeling is partly the result, perhaps, of uncertainty 
as to the ways in which the Christian Churches can, in 
fact, help to realize the kind of principles for which 
they stand. There are several ways in which a Church 
acts upon the social mind of a community. It is a teach¬ 
ing body. It occupies a status of public influence and 
weight, and by conferences and manifestoes can help 
to mold public opinion. In both capacities it can con¬ 
tribute a stream of thought and inspiration, the effect of 
which may be slow, but can hardly help, in the long run, 
to be considerable. It would be more considerable if the 
Churches were better equipped for their task. The situa¬ 
tion is possibly not the same in America as in England. 
But in the latter country any observer must be impressed 
by the disability under which the Church of England 
labors in coping with questions which concern, or ought 
to concern, the Christian conscience, through its mere lack 
of any permanent machinery for grappling with them. 
What it needs is a Thinking department/ a staff of offi¬ 
cers whose duty it is to collect and systematize informa- 


140 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 

tion and to supply the leaders of the Church with the 
knowledge needed if they are to speak with effect. At 
present it appoints committees when occasion arises. But 
improvised opinions are rarely effective. If it is to speak 
with any authority on international or economic ques¬ 
tions, it must create an organ to accumulate, sift, and 
criticize the material necessary to the formation of a 
reasoned judgment.” 6 

Certainly we shall never succeed in making the Church 
a great power in the formation of public opinion until 
we have set ourselves more seriously to the task of 
thoroughly understanding contemporary social conditions 
and social forces. We rightly emphasize the indispensa¬ 
bleness of good-will, but good-will alone is not enough. 
We must have the intelligence to make it effective in 
dealing with the concrete problems of actual life. The 
Christian Gospel, the solvent of the world’s ills, must be 
guided by accurate knowledge of society. In a growing 
alliance between Christianity and social science is our 
hope of social salvation. 

Significant beginnings have been made by the Churches 
in recent years in studying concrete situations, in crys¬ 
tallizing their own point of view and in holding it before 
the wider public. The vigorous campaign among the 
Churches for reduction of armament, under the leadership 
of the Federal Council of the Churches and the World 
Alliance for International Friendship, and the continuing 
efforts to mobilize the religious forces of the country to 
work with sustained vigor for building up other agencies 
than war for the settlement of international disputes, are 
cases in point. Beginning with the observance of a Sun¬ 
day in June, 1921, as “Disarmament Day” the program 
included the preparation of material for pastors on the 
present armament situation in the light of Christian prin¬ 
ciples, the concentrating of the attention of the Churches 


• R. H. Tawney, “The Church and Industry,” New Republic, 
April 27, 1921. 



CHRISTIANIZING PUBLIC OPINION 141 

on the issues throughout the Disarmament Conference, 
with a persistent campaign of education in both the daily 
and the religious press as to the concern of the Churches 
in the movement. Such work as this, aiming to arouse 
well-informed public opinion along Christian lines, is as 
directly a responsibility of Christian education as the 
maintenance of Sunday Schools. Indeed, whatever we 
teach formally in our schools about Christian living de¬ 
pends for its effectiveness upon a social environment that 
looks in the same direction. 

The effect of the so-called “Social Ideals of the 
Churches,” adopted by the Federal Council of the 
Churches in 1908 and endorsed by most of the larger 
denominations, and of the investigation of the steel strike 
of 1919 by the Interchurch World Movement are re¬ 
markable examples of the value of concerted efforts to 
understand modern industry and to hold the Christian 
ideal before it. While the report on the steel strike 
was for a time the target of severe attack and its con¬ 
clusions were regarded as impracticable, later events have 
been a striking tribute to its power in shaping public 
opinion. Two years after its publication the Steel Cor¬ 
poration had announced the abolition of the seven-day 
week and the twenty-four hour shift, which the Inter¬ 
church Report had called for. A year later, as the result 
of the increasing tide of public opinion, in the creation 
of which the research and educational work of the Fed¬ 
eral Council of the Churches played no inconsiderable 
part, the United States Steel Corporation announced a 
beginning in the elimination of the twelve-hour day. 

Of especial significance is it that provision is now being 
made for continuous rather than occasional efforts by the 
Churches really to understand industrial and social con¬ 
ditions and so to be able to hold forth the Christian ideal 
effectively. The Federal Council’s Commission on the 
Church and Social Service has initiated a research depart¬ 
ment which, among other important functions, is issuing 


142 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 

a weekly information service to the religious press and to 
interested Christians, presenting carefully prepared in¬ 
formation on social questions as they affect the ideal for 
which the Churches stand. 

Such efforts on the part of the Churches merit much 
fuller support and recognition than they have yet received. 
They have thus far been seriously hampered by lack of 
funds. The support of such an enterprise ought to be 
recognized for what it really is—a great and vital educa¬ 
tional responsibility of the Church. In some form or 
other it must be extended to every area of the world’s 
life and work. To carry on a patient, thorough study of 
the relation of the Church to the throbbing social issues 
of the day and to provide for the effective united utter¬ 
ance of the common mind thus reached should be an 
indispensable part of the program of any Church that 
would fashion the organization of society along Christian 
lines. 

In the last analysis the most powerful educational in¬ 
fluence which the Church can exercise for shaping a 
Christian public opinion is its own life. Not what the 
Church says but what it is and does will finally determine 
its effect upon the individual and upon society. The 
Word must become flesh and dwell among us if men are 
to behold its glory. The great educational mission of the 
Church lies in its being, in its own corporate character, 
the kind of brotherhood which it proclaims as the social 
ideal. Through its own life, as an organized social group 
trying to live on the plane of the teachings gf Jesus, it 
must bear witness to society of the power of Christianity 
to establish new relationships among men, relationships 
based on love and transcending all barriers of nation, 
race, and class. 


PART III 


HOW THE CHURCH SHOULD ORGANIZE 

ITS TEACHING 













I ' 


















































11 


■ 










CHAPTER VII 


THE TEACHING AGENCIES OF THE LOCAL 

CHURCH: A CRITIQUE 

One cannot rightly approach a study of the organiza¬ 
tions through which the Church’s educational purpose is 
to be achieved without bearing in mind that no special 
“agencies” ever exhaust the field. The whole Church 
and every phase of its life need to be conceived in edu¬ 
cational terms. 

Worship is, or should be, of the highest educational 
importance and value. It is consciously directing the 
minds and emotions of the people toward certain ends. 
The symbolism of architecture, the forms of worship, the 
structure of the ritual, the selections of Scripture, the 
character of the prayers, the type of music, the selection 
of the hymns, all these are based upon more or less definite 
religious presuppositions, arouse characteristic religious 
emotions and seek to secure appropriate attitudes and 
modes of conduct. Their combined and cumulative effect 
is to mold the life of the individual into harmony with 
that of the religious group with which he regularly wor¬ 
ships. The fact that the teaching value of these influences 
is often lost sight of, and that those affected by them 
are unconscious of being molded, does not make them 
any less significant. 

The pulpit, as an educational factor, deserves far more 
attention than it usually receives. Preaching is, or should 
be, teaching. In most of our churches the sermon is in¬ 
tended to have a teaching value of a more or less definite 
kind. Altogether too much of the preaching of today, 

i45 


146 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 

however—and of the services of worship also—leaves 
the impression that their teaching value is very imperfectly 
understood. The sermon fails to make contact with the 
life and thinking of the hearer, or it deals too exclusively 
in vague generalities, or it lacks suggestiveness, or its 
structure is diffuse and scattering, or it leaves the hearer 
in doubt as to just what he is expected to do. In other 
words, the preacher is not educational in method. Often 
he is only hortatory. Moreover, the pulpit frequently 
lacks cumulative power; there is no strong thread binding 
together the sermons and the services of succeeding Sun¬ 
days in one progressive unity. It is not necessary to 
advertise a plan of continuity, nor is it necessary to sac¬ 
rifice timeliness to such a plan, but the preacher who 
is also a teacher will realize that there is a certain con¬ 
secutiveness in human experience and that the inspiration 
and stimulus of preaching must somehow become an 
organic part of the onflowing life of the community 
if it is to affect it profoundly and permanently. 

But however much may be achieved by other influences, 
the Church that really believes in education will maintain 
a school. As well expect children to be trained for citizen- 
ship in the state without the provision of the public school 
as to expect them to be trained for Christian living and 
service without institutions that are specifically educa¬ 
tional in method. Those activities which have to do more 
distinctly and systematically with teaching are provided, in 
our Protestant churches, by means of specialized agencies, 
most of which are to be found in connection with nearly 
every local church. The most common, of course, are 
the Sunday School, the Young People’s Society, the Mis¬ 
sion Study Group, the Daily Vacation Bible School, the 
Week Day School of Religious Education, the Pastor’s 
Communicants’ Class, the organized adult class, and the 
Teacher’s Training Class. These and other special 
agencies we shall examine in this chapter. 


TEACHING AGENCIES OF LOCAL CHURCH 147 

1. Agencies Directly Connected with the Church 

1* The Sunday School .—The oldest specialized teach¬ 
ing agency of the Church, and the broadest in scope, 
whether in respect to ages served, material used in in¬ 
struction, or teaching methods employed, is the Sunday 
School. Yet the Sunday School itself is of comparatively 
recent origin. Originally planned as a missionary or 
philanthropic agency, seeking to preoccupy the time and 
thought of idle, ignorant, or vicious youth, its scope and 
purpose have so expanded in recent years that it now 
seeks to minister to all ages and in its objectives includes 
evangelism, biblical instruction, instruction in missions, 
training in worship, in social service, in benevolent giv¬ 
ing, in the duties of Church membership and leadership 
within the Church, and in habits of right conduct. Many 
of the best Sunday Schools now have elaborate curricula, 
and in some instances also extensive programs for en¬ 
listing activity and expressing Christian purpose in wor¬ 
ship and service. It has been, and is, more than any other 
agency, the Church’s channel of religious education. 

Until recently there was little recognition of the 
differing capacities and needs of the different ages, 
such as we have considered in previous chapters. There 
was almost no provision for the teaching of missions or 
of the history and work of the Church or for training 
in worship. There was only the scantiest attention to 
self-expression and service. A meager, ill-adapted me¬ 
chanical system of “uniform lessons” was the entire 
program. When at last the demand for graded lessons 
and modern educational methods could no longer be with¬ 
stood, the new system was obliged to win its way against 
prejudice and compress itself into the brief time on Sun¬ 
day which custom had decreed was sufficient. Teachers 
who knew only the stereotyped plan of verse exposition, 
fastened on them by long experience with uniform lessons, 
made frequent failure of graded lesson teaching, which 


148 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 

assumed an entirely different aim, approach, and method. 
Superintendents, accustomed only to mass management, 
drill methods, and “inspirational” talks, found themselves 
helpless when confronted with a situation which involved 
care’ful adjustment of all the processes of teaching and 
administration to the requirements of graded groups. 
The leaders of training classes for teachers declared it 
was “impossible” longer to maintain the teachers’ meet¬ 
ing. Buildings containing only one or two or three large 
rooms, in which whole departments were accustomed to 
meet, did not lend themselves to the quiet intensive teach¬ 
ing of carefully graded classes. It is not surprising, there¬ 
fore, that thousands of schools are still relatively un¬ 
touched by the newer developments. 

When one looks back over our forty years of rela¬ 
tively barren teaching during which the “uniform” habit 
was fastened upon the churches of practically every com¬ 
munity, and when one realizes that the churches believed 
for more than a generation that this was all that is neces¬ 
sary for the religious development of youth, he begins 
to understand why it is that the cross-section of young 
manhood brought together by the selective draft could 
be so pitifully ignorant and undeveloped in their religious 
life. 1 

A new era has now begun in which a really educational 
procedure is becoming established. Yet our prevailing 
assumption is that the entire program is still to be 
carried out in a single hour on Sunday, when practically 
the whole constituency is assembled at once. This custom 
makes the largest possible demand upon the church in 
respect to equipment and teaching force, for it is obvious 
that a smaller number of rooms and a smaller number 
of teachers would suffice, provided classes were permitted 
to meet at different times and thus make use of the same 
rooms and equipment, and provided the same teacher 
could be induced to teach several different class-groups 


x See p. 36. 



TEACHING AGENCIES OF LOCAL CHURCH 149 

successively. Moreover, the attempt to telescope the whole 
teaching of the church into the same hour on Sunday, 
aside from many other obvious difficulties, creates an im¬ 
possible situation for the pupil. This condition may be 
indicated graphically somewhat as follows: 


The Sunday School 
Session 

Opening 
period: 

15-20 min. 


Lesson 
period: 
30-35 min. 


Closing 
period: 
5-10 min. 


Into this period are thrown such 
acts of worship as the school 
provides, interspersed with drill 
in singing, or in memory work, 
words of exhortation, member¬ 
ship contests, notices, missionary 
talks, the taking of an offering, 
and other items. The program 
is generally in charge of the 
superintendent, who is bom¬ 
barded with requests from vari¬ 
ous quarters. 

The “lesson” is itself a com¬ 
posite product. The outline of 
the course is determined by the 
interdenominational lesson com¬ 
mittee; the form of presentation 
is provided in helps prepared by 
denominational editors and pub¬ 
lishers; the methods of teach¬ 
ing and organization are sug¬ 
gested by denominational and 
interdenominational secretaries 
and field workers, all working 
more or less independently and 
not always in harmony. 

In the closing period acts of 
worship compete for attention 
with statistical and business de¬ 
tails. 


Seldom is any unity of theme attempted in the period 
devoted to worship; still less any correlation of the wor¬ 
ship with the work of the lesson period. Indeed, the 
worship itself is too often undifferentiated from the rest 
of the session. The work of the lesson period suffers 
from lack of any effective supervision locally, as well as 
from the confusion caused by suggestions which come 





150 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 

from various outside sources unrelated to each other and 
sometimes inconsistent with each other. From the point 
of view of the pupil, the hour devoted to his religious in¬ 
struction is too often an hour filled with a mass of un¬ 
related, unorganized details and it is small wonder that 
his religious ideas are vague and confused. The marvel 
is that, under the conditions which have obtained in most 
Sunday Schools, anything positive and constructive is 
actually carried over into his daily life and behavior. 

The new influences that are now being felt in the de¬ 
velopment of the Sunday-School movement have been 
suggested in an earlier chapter or will be considered on 
later pages. 

(2) The Young People's Society .—The movement com¬ 
monly known as the Young People’s Movement began 
to spread among the Churches during the early eighties. 2 
Three characteristic features are found in most local 
groups; training in worship and in the ability to speak 
upon religious themes, especially regarding aspects of 
personal religious experience; training in methods of or¬ 
ganization and business-like procedure; and training in the 
planning of social gatherings and in the promotion of 
good fellowship. As originally conceived, the Young Peo¬ 
ple’s Society was purely a local agency, a feature of the 
life of the local Church, and its activities were planned 
by local leaders. As the movement spread, these indi¬ 
vidual societies united to form local unions, these later 
combining into state and national organizations. Gradu¬ 
ally, and quite naturally, leadership became centralized 
and programs for local use were prepared and issued from 
the national office. 

*The first Christian Endeavor Society was organized by the 
Rev. Frances E. Clark in the Williston Congregational Church, 
Portland, Maine, in February, 1881. The Epworth League 
(Methodist) grew out of the Oxford Leagues organized by 
Bishop Vincent and indorsed by the General Conference in 1888. 
The Baptist Young People’s Union was started in Kansas in 1887. 



TEACHING AGENCIES OF LOCAL CHURCH 151 

It was also only natural that many who had found help 
in the organization, or who had themselves proved helpful 
to it, should continue as loyal supporters of the local 
society and participants in its activities after they had 
passed quite beyond the limits of the age-period for 
which these activities were originally intended. Thus, 
while these activities were designed to train young peo¬ 
ple for Church membership and responsibility, the leaders 
have met a very practical difficulty in accomplishing the 
feat known to educators as “transfer of training”; that 
is to say, it does not follow that because a young person 
is active and proficient in the work of a Young People’s 
Society he will be loyal and proficient and active in the 
work of the Church in other directions. Indeed, not¬ 
withstanding the motto, “For Christ and the Church,” it 
has not infrequently happened that young people have 
resented appeals for loyalty to the general services of the 
Church and pastors have felt that the Young People’s 
Society had come to be a kind of rival of the Church 
of which theoretically it is a part. 

On the other hand, it was natural that far-seeing lead¬ 
ers should have an eye to the perpetuation of the society 
by the enlisting of new recruits. To this end societies 
have been organized of groups just younger, known as 
Intermediate and Junior Societies, respectively, a part 
of whose purpose is to serve as “feeders” for the Senior 
Societies. The program for these younger groups also 
is provided from the central office and does not differ 
radically from the program for the senior group, except 
that the younger groups are generally held under close; 
supervision by some adult person. Thus the methods pri¬ 
marily intended for a particular age-group are often per¬ 
petuated after the time for that kind of training has 
passed, or, on the other hand, are projected downward 
to younger groups too immature to profit by them. 

Under the stimulus of recent educational movements, 
an expansion of program has taken place both in the 


152 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 

Young People’s Societies and in the Sunday School. 
The latter agency has recognized the necessity of sup¬ 
plying opportunity for social expression and group ac¬ 
tivity, in close connection with the regular Sunday School 
teaching. A new emphasis is also being placed upon 
training in worship in the Sunday School and programs 
of worship are being prepared with more care. In many 
Sunday Schools the young people’s classes are organized 
and are devoting themselves to various forms of social 
service or to missionary undertakings in connection with 
their class work. At the same time, Young People’s So¬ 
cieties, particularly in certain denominations, have em¬ 
barked upon more extensive programs of Bible study, 
Church history, community study, or mission study. The 
result of such expansion, under separate leadership, has 
been to create a feeling of rivalry between sister agencies 
in the local Church and to stimulate competition between 
them for membership among the same young people. The 
state of tension thus created has sometimes become acute, 
with respect both to the local groups and to the more 
distant and widely separated state or national leaders. 

Some of the tendencies noted are inherent in most or¬ 
ganizations—such as the tendency to magnify the im¬ 
portance of the organization out of proportion to the 
interests of the persons whose needs it is intended to serve, 
and the tendency to become mechanical in the use of 
stereotyped methods. Some are the result of a growing 
sense of responsibility for providing religious instruction 
and training—such as the tendency toward overlapping 
of activities and programs and toward rivalry between 
sister organizations. Nevertheless, it is now recognized 
that the situation is unfortunate, from the point of view 
of the young person who is being taught and trained, and 
makes for confusion. For “it is not sufficient that all 
the young people of the parish should have opportunities 
for instruction, worship, expression, and recreation. One 
should have the feeling that they are being offered as 


TEACHING AGENCIES OF LOCAL CHURCH 153 

elements in a single program conducted by a single agency. 
There should be a natural relation between the service 
undertaken and the content of the instructional courses; 
and if this relationship is to seem vital, both must ema¬ 
nate from the same source. Neither should the devotional 
life be a thing apart. People are never merely ‘conse¬ 
crated’; they are consecrated to a cause, or a person, or 
not at all. The more the devotional agency is divorced 
from the agencies of activity and of instruction, the 
greater will be the tendency to produce an unreal and 
abnormal type of experience, in which young people seek 
to ‘testify’ according to stereotyped forms, and to ‘recon¬ 
secrate’ themselves in various vague ways. When the 
agency that directs the devotional life is the same that 
directs the social, expressional, and instructional activi¬ 
ties, there will be much growing out of these other in¬ 
terests about which to testify, consecration will become 
more genuine and sane, and the inter-relationship between 
these religious needs of youth will appear more clearly.” * 3 

Various efforts have been made to secure a closer co¬ 
ordination between the programs of Sunday School and 
Young People’s Society. These may be reduced to four 
principal types, presented in an ascending scale: 4 

“(a) The most common position—though universally 
opposed by religious educators—is that which permits 
and sanctions absolute unrelatedness of organizations, 
without any consciousness of unity in aim, without any 
singleness of plan, without regard to neglected areas, with¬ 
out concern for overlapping. 

“(b) A second attitude marks a slight advancement; a 
difference in function among the various agencies is quite 
clearly recognized, even though no provision is made for 

* Blashfield, “Young People and Church School,” Religious 

Education, April, 1920, p. 95 - 

4 Lobingier, “Work with Young People,” Religious Education, 
June, 1920, p. 155 - 



154 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 

coordination in the matter of organization. According 
to this plan it is assumed that the Sunday-School class is 
for instruction; the Young People’s Society for expres¬ 
sion; both for worship; another club perhaps for recrea¬ 
tion, etc. The first difficulty with such a ‘general under¬ 
standing’ is that it cannot but prove ineffective because 
of the lack of a unifying agency that will see each part 
of the plan in relation to the whole, and proceed to fill 
the gaps in the plan as a whole. Another difficulty 
with such a plan is that it is based upon a false psy¬ 
chology and teaches a wrong view of the educational 
process; it makes for disunity in the educative task. It 
sees no interrelation between instruction and expression, 
or between worship and activity. It believes in both doing 
and learning, but it does not consider that one learns by 
doing, and proceeds to do more efficiently as a result 
of the learning. It believes in both the devotional life 
and the expressional life, but it fails to develop the de¬ 
votional life from the directed activities and experiences 
that the Church has offered. The wall of partition set 
up between different organizations with a more or less 
insistent emphasis upon distinctiveness of function is 
scarcely consistent with our modern unitary view of life. 

“(c) A third attitude toward the question of correla¬ 
tion is that which may be called the ‘Council’ or ‘Federa¬ 
tion’ plan, advocated as a means of bringing together the 
various organizations of the local Church to work as a 
unit, while still preserving the integrity of each partici¬ 
pating group. The Council, in each local Church, is com¬ 
posed of one or two representatives from each organized 
group of young people, together with the pastor and one 
or two others as members ex officio. It reviews the 
programs of each constituent group, thus promoting mu¬ 
tual understanding. It aims also at coordinated activity, 
including a unified plan for social entertainments, a more 
inclusive instructional program, and a wider enlistment 
in various forms of expressional activity. Competition is 


TEACHING AGENCIES OF LOCAL CHURCH 155 

diminished, overlapping of function is reduced, and the 
number of neglected young people is lessened. 

“(d) Still others who advocate the correlation of young 
people’s work are urging the establishment of a Young 
People’s Department of the Church, that, being more than 
a federation of groups, shall be a single group completely 
unified in its organization, with such opportunities pro¬ 
vided as young people of the later adolescent years need, 
in instruction, worship, expression, and recreation. In 
some instances the department meets for iy 2 hours Sun¬ 
day morning, 30 minutes being devoted to worship, 30 
minutes to instruction, and 30 minutes to an expressional 
session conserving the values of the former Young Peo¬ 
ple’s Society meeting. In other instances the Young 
People’s Department meets in the morning for instruction, 
and in the evening for expression, with elements of wor¬ 
ship in each of the sessions; recreational activities are 
conducted during the week and social service activities 
are also undertaken. There is but one Young People’s 
Department or organization of the Church, however, with 
a united.constituency and a single group of officers, con¬ 
ducting its well-rounded program. It is erroneous to 
assume that when an adjustment such as this is made, 
one group is perpetuating itself while all others are being 
merged into it. Rather is it true that all the agencies 
are being unified into the Young People’s Department of 
the Church, organized for a complete program of religious 
education.” 

3. Groups for Missionary Education .—Closely inter¬ 
woven with the history of the Young People’s Society 
is the history of the Young People’s Missionary Move¬ 
ment. From its beginnings in the Student Volunteer 
Movement, which sought to enlist young people for serv¬ 
ice in foreign lands, there has grown a program of mis¬ 
sionary education which is now a recognized phase of the 
Church’s teaching work for all ages in nearly all Protes- 


156 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 

tant Churches and comprehends within its scope the win¬ 
ning of recruits for service both at home and abroad 
and the consecration of money and other resources as 
well as the dedication of life. Special courses of study 
dealing with the peoples, religions, and problems of vari¬ 
ous lands have been prepared and teachers have been 
trained in summer conferences for the organization and 
conduct of mission study classes in the local churches. 
Most of the denominational missionary societies now have 
educational secretaries who are charged with the responsi¬ 
bility of stimulating the local church. They cooperate ef¬ 
fectively in the Missionary Education Movement. The 
work of the women’s missionary societies has long included 
important educational activities both for women and 
young people. It would be difficult to estimate ade¬ 
quately the influence which has been exerted upon the 
life of the Churches through all these agencies. 

Thoughtful observers feel, however, that the time has 
come for a readjustment of the plans by which it is hoped 
to provide every young person with a reasonable ac¬ 
quaintance with the peoples of the earth and their needs, 
as well as with an adequate motive for enlistment in the 
missionary enterprise. Great changes have been taking 
place whereby peoples have been brought into closer and 
closer contact. The very persistence of civilization is now 
seen to be threatened unless the principles of Jesus can 
become dominant in the institutions, the national life, and 
the international relationships of people everywhere, as 
well as in their individual thinking and conduct. So the 
missionary task of the Church looms larger than at any 
previous moment. Indeed, it may be said to be but an¬ 
other name to designate its entire constructive activity. It 
is not too much to say that any person today who lacks 
an interest in his fellowmen of whatever race or color 
or speech, who does not feel a thrill of sympathy with 
their need whether it be in Russia, Armenia, China, 
Africa, or the islands of the sea, and an impulse to share 


TEACHING AGENCIES OF LOCAL CHURCH 157 

with all men everywhere the blessings that have come to 
the more favored, can hardly claim to be a follower of 
Jesus Christ. 

The conviction that missions is only another name for 
Christianity in action and that all the teaching of the 
Church must look toward the development of the mission¬ 
ary spirit is no longer confined to the official secretaries 
of missionary boards. Moreover, the newer education 
emphasizes the fact that there is no real teaching that 
stops short of expression in conduct and action. There¬ 
fore all the teaching of the Church must be missionary, in 
the sense that it is to develop motive and sympathy and 
find its outlet in service. In the development of the 
Sunday School there has been a growing effort in re¬ 
cent years to provide opportunity for such expression 
in close connection with the regular courses of instruction. 

But just at the moment when there is coming to be an 
enlarging conviction of the necessity of including mis¬ 
sionary instruction as an integral part of the Church’s 
teaching, and when there exist in greater abundance than 
ever before the materials for study and probably more 
persons than ever before trained for the conduct of 
mission study classes, at this moment of opportunity 
the teaching of missions is in serious danger of going 
by default through sheer lack of correlation of effort 
on the part of the various teaching agencies of the Church. 
Let us consider some of the factors in the situation. 

(a) The missionary agencies are handicapped, in the 
first instance, by the fact that they must compete with 
other agencies, already in the field, for a share of the 
child’s time and attention. Even if they attempt to 
work through the Sunday School and the Young People’s 
Society, so far as the gathering of the study group is 
concerned, the mission study class and its course of study 
are apt to be regarded as an “extra,” for which young 
people, unless already vitally interested, have scant time. 

(b) The course of mission study is uncorrelated, either 


158 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 


with the course of Sunday-School instruction, or with the 
program of the Young People’s Society. In the case of 
the former, as we have seen, the effect of introducing 
special missionary topics from time to time is merely to 
add to the mental confusion caused in the mind of the 
pupil as a result of overcrowding a brief weekly session 
with a variety of unrelated information. In the case of 
the Young People’s Society, mission study suffers, along 
with the rest of religious education, from the uncertainty 
and competition which too frequently result from the lack 
of correlation between the programs of this agency and 
those of the organized Sunday-School class. And in either 
case there is failure, on the one hand, to develop sys¬ 
tematically a motive for the forms of expression sug¬ 
gested in the mission-study class; or else there is failure 
to connect the form of expression with the motives and 
enthusiasms which may be aroused in the teaching of 
the Sunday-School class. 

(c) Missionary education, as yet, is largely ungraded 
and consequently lacking in any principle of progression. 
It is true that there are children’s books and young peo¬ 
ple’s books and books for adults. But the publication 
scheme has been a “uniform” scheme, centering the at¬ 
tention of the whole Church and all ages upon a particu¬ 
lar field or phase of work each year, regardless of the 
fact that this may not be the best method of developing 
through a series of years an intelligent interest in and 
responsibility for the people of all countries. Today, 
indeed, forward steps are beginning to be taken. Espe¬ 
cially deserving of notice is the recent adoption of the 
policy by the Joint Committee on Home Missionary 
Literature (representing the Council of Women for Home 
Missions and the Missionary Education Movement) of 
preparing the material for juniors in a three-year cycle. 
This is based upon a consideration of the interests and 
needs of the pupil rather than upon the maintenance of a 
uniform theme for the year. But there has been, as 


TEACHING AGENCIES OF LOCAL CHURCH 159 

yet, no adequate study of the natural approach of child¬ 
hood and youth to the missionary enterprise, no adequate 
research as to how one may best be introduced to these 
wider and widening relationships, no sufficient formulation 
of the method by which sympathies may be progressively 
broadened, no complete system of training suggested 
whereby the child, boy and girl, youth and adult, may 
be brought into intelligent and increasing participation in 
various forms of altruistic and vicarious service. Mis¬ 
sionary education needs to be incorporated into the gen¬ 
eral program, if for no other reason than that it is needed 
at every point in that program and not merely as an addi¬ 
tional phase of education. 

What applies to missionary education is equally true 
of training for social service, for there is mo essential 
difference between missions, broadly conceived, and Chris¬ 
tian social service rightly understood. The aim of each 
is to change not only lives but the conditions of living, 
and each presupposes the Christian motive, sympathy, 
good-will, the willingness to sacrifice self in order to serve 
others. The distinction here, like the distinction between 
home and foreign missions, is artificial and chiefly a mat¬ 
ter of administrative convenience. 

4. The Pastor’s Communicants’ Class .—The Episcopa¬ 
lian and Lutheran Churches, and a few others, have the 
custom of confirming children who have reached the age 
of twelve years or so, and of holding catechetical classes 
in preparation for confirmation. The practice of organiz¬ 
ing communicants’ classes has become much more com¬ 
mon in recent years among other religious bodies also. 
There is no question but that the Church should seize 
upon the special opportunity offered by the spiritual 
awakening which naturally occurs in the early years of 
adolescence to present to the boys and girls the claims 
of Jesus Christ and of His Church upon their loyalty. 
The failure to do this has undoubtedly lost to the Church 


i6o THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 


the devotion and service of thousands who might easily 
have been enlisted in its enterprises, and the loss has 
by no means been reclaimed by subsequent campaigns of 
adult evangelism. 

As a rule, however, pastor’s classes fall far short of 
rendering their best service. There are still, it appears, 
instances where the discredited method of rote-memoriza¬ 
tion is followed, after the manner of the old-fashioned 
catechisms, a series of theological questions being pro¬ 
pounded whose more or less abstract answers are to be 
committed to memory. Little is to be said, of course, in 
defense of such a plan, for however successful the leader 
may be in exercising the memories of the pupils, this suc¬ 
cess does not indicate in any degree the measure of con¬ 
viction or purpose in the mind of the pupil. 

Even where the leader follows the better method of 
informal discussion, his outline is still too generally a 
survival of the old habit of abstract theologizing. One 
of the most recent outlines sent out from the evangelistic 
committee of a denomination that prides itself upon its 
interest and achievement in education contains the fol¬ 
lowing topics: I. Being a Christian. II. The Bible. 
III. Prayer. IV. The Kingdom. V. The Christian 
Church. VI. Church Organization. VII. Why Join the 
Church? Now these are all subjects concerning which 
the mature Christian ought to have clear-cut convictions, 
but they cannot all be brought profitably to the attention 
of young people between the ages of 12 and 15. They 
should be distributed over a wider range of years. For 
example, the boy or girl of 13 or 14 will be deeply in¬ 
terested in the personal aspects of the Christian life. The 
object of the class for these ages should be, therefore, to 
make clear, through informal discussion, the character 
of Jesus, as the Ideal Person; His consciousness of God, 
His intimate fellowship with God in prayer, His consistent 
and unswerving purpose to do God’s will, His life of 
self-sacrifice, His sympathy with suffering humanity, 


TEACHING AGENCIES OF LOCAL CHURCH 161 


His perfect obedience, His courage, His patience, His 
spiritual majesty, His winsomeness, and His wis¬ 
dom. And the result to be aimed at should be the 
awakening of admiration for Him and the commitment 
of the self to Him as Ideal and Savior. If the Bible 
is touched upon in this connection it should be as the 
utterances of the great souls with whom Jesus was 
in spiritual fellowship, and as containing the story of 
Jesus Himself and His teachings. If the Church is in¬ 
cluded in the discussion it should be to develop in the 
pupils a sense of comradeship with the community group 
composed of those who love Jesus Christ and are striving 
to learn and to do the will of God as He has taught. This 
is certainly not the time to discuss abstract doctrines or 
the mechanical aspects of Church organization. 

It is not until mid-adolescence is reached, and passed, 
that there begins to be a taste for the more philosophical 
or “doctrinal” teaching—say at about 16 to 18 years of 
age. Perhaps it is later still before there is a desire to 
know how things are done, that is, to become acquainted 
with the theory of organization. Then is the time for 
the discussion of the structure of the Bible and its in¬ 
fluence, the theory of prayer, the nature of faith and 
salvation, the meaning of the Kingdom of God, the Chris¬ 
tian Church and its organization for community and world 
service. It is not necessary, of course, to hold back young 
people from joining the Church until all this ground has 
been covered. It is natural and right for them to seek, 
and be admitted to, membership at the time of their awak¬ 
ening loyalty to Jesus. The difficulty rather lies in the 
fact that we have conceived of this process of pastoral 
training too exclusively in terms of the Church organiza¬ 
tion and too little in terms of the pupil’s developing in¬ 
terests and needs. Consequently we have attempted to 
crowd into a very brief space what should be spread 
over a longer period of development. It is neither pos¬ 
sible nor necessary to provide a young person all at once 


1 62 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 


with a complete equipment for Church membership; it 
should be provided as needed, a certain portion as he 
joins the Church, interpreting to him the meaning of 
Christian loyalty, and another portion when he needs to 
have a Christian philosophy of life for meeting his new 
vocational responsibilities, and another portion when he 
begins to be more active in the Church organization so 
that he may understand how to make his activity count. 5 

Clearly there ought to be closer correlation between the 
training in the pastor’s class and the work of the Sunday 
School and Young People’s Society and mission study 
class. The discussion of the meaning of personal loyalty 
to Jesus should come in as close relationship as possible 
to the course of intensive study of the life of Jesus in 
the Sunday School. The theological discussion should 
have as its background the study of the teaching of Jesus 
and Paul, and would be even more effective if the teach¬ 
ing of the prophets and the story of the development of 
Christian thinking in some of the historic creeds could 
be added. The discussion of the Kingdom of God, of 
Christian democracy, of the Christian church and its or¬ 
ganization, should be in connection with a more extended 
study of Christian vocation, missions, and social service. 
The pastor should seek, in the communicants’ class, not 
to introduce into the lives of his young people something 
different and unrelated to the rest of their religious train¬ 
ing, but rather to bring to culmination in their experience 
the ideals and impulses and enthusiasms which are engen¬ 
dered through the teaching of the Church’s whole cur¬ 
riculum. He must know, therefore, what they are being 
taught, and when these various courses are being studied, 
that he may, at the opportune moment, perform his own 
most delicate but essential part in bringing all the rest of 
the teaching to its full fruition. 


“Cf. Chapter IV. 




TEACHING AGENCIES OF LOCAL CHURCH 163 

5- The Daily Vacation Bible School .—The need for 
an increased amount of time for religious education has 
led to a rapid development, during the last few years, 
of two movements, one for the use of a part of the sum¬ 
mer vacation, the other for claiming certain week-day 
hours regularly for religious teaching. With the latter 
we shall deal at some length in the following chapter. 

The character and methods of daily vacation Bible 
schools have varied widely and the aim has often not been 
clear or definite. In a great number the term “Bible 
school” has been rather misleading. They have not aimed 
principally to teach the Bible or religion, although devo¬ 
tional exercises and Bible stories have had a minor place; 
their purpose has Been chiefly to gather idle or neglected 
children into the Churches and to keep them busy or 
amused in a wholesome way in a wholesome environment. 
Others have developed an interesting program of handi¬ 
craft of various kinds. A growing number have been 
working out a schedule in which a fair share of the time 
is given to definite religious teaching, along with the 
recreational features, and it is reasonable to assume 
that the development of the schools will be in this 
direction. 

One of the most significant features of the vacation 
school is that it has made an appeal to, and reached, 
children not now being reached by the Sunday School or 
other established agencies. 

The vacation school, however, has not yet really found 
its place in relation to the other agencies. With the rapid 
increase in number and value of the week-day schools, it 
is highly important that the vacation school should now 
be developed as a part of an all-the-year program of 
week-day religious education, and that the whole week¬ 
day movement (as we shall see later) should be correlated 
with the Sunday School and the other educational activi¬ 
ties in a complete and unified program. 


164 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 

6 . The Adult Class and Forum .—The children and 
youth, although they must always fill the central place in 
the educational outlook of the Church and are always 
its supreme opportunity, are not the only ones for whom 
the Church has a teaching responsibility. There are still 
the great rank and file of the Church’s membership, the 
men and women who, though they have reached adult life, 
ought to be growing constantly in an understanding of 
the meaning of the Christian religion and in the practice 
of the Christian way of living. They set before the 
Church an educational task too often neglected save for 
the work which the pulpit may do in one hour a week. 
The adult class, meeting either Sunday morning in con¬ 
nection with the Sunday School (in which it had its 
origin) or on a week-day evening, lends itself to a great 
variety of important educational uses. A few Churches 
are making effective use of this method; many more have 
hardly begun to experiment with it, still less to exhaust 
its possibilities. 

A unique service can be rendered by an adult class 
in bringing parents together to study the question of 
religion in the home, especially the training of their chil¬ 
dren in the religious life. If the home really has the 
central place which we have assigned it in the whole task 
of Christian education, nothing can be more important for 
the Church than to assist parents in providing for definite 
religious education within the family. And, however it be 
accomplished, there should be abundant opportunity for 
parents to be brought to understand the responsibility 
of parenthood and to meet it intelligently. This will in¬ 
clude familiarity with the fundamental facts of physical, 
mental, and moral development, with the problems of child 
life, with the religious crises and the best methods of 
meeting them, with problems of discipline, with lists of 
books for children’s reading, and methods of vocational 
guidance. The Church may help also to bring parents into 
frequent contact with teachers in the public schools, with 


TEACHING AGENCIES OF LOCAL CHURCH 165 

librarians and playground directors, as well as with Sun¬ 
day-School teachers and leaders of children’s and young 
people’s organizations. 

The adult class furnishes an invaluable opportunity for 
helping people to come to clear and intelligent un¬ 
derstanding of the central truths of Christianity. The 
underlying convictions which have grown out of Chris¬ 
tian experience and have found expression in the doctrines 
of the Church—faith in God, His revelation in Christ, 
His presence in the world, the meaning of the Cross, the 
possibility of salvation from sin, the ideal of the Kingdom 
of God, the hope of eternal life—all these need to be 
interpreted so that men shall have a valid intellectual 
formulation of their religious experience. The Bible as 
the book in which this experience and these convictions 
find their clearest and most illuminating expression needs 
to be explored year after year by those whose religious 
life is to continue to grow in strength and power. 

It is of fundamental importance to teach also the his¬ 
tory of the Church as the institution in which the Christian 
experience finds corporate expression. At this point 
Protestantism has been seriously defective. In its reaction 
against the abuses of the Roman Catholic Church, it has 
conceived deep-seated suspicion of institutional religion. 
Although certain branches of the Church, whose attitude 
toward Rome in the Reformation was more conservative, 
have retained a strong churchly feeling, for the majority 
of Protestants this is not the case. The significance of 
Christian institutions has not been adequately appre¬ 
hended. Thus it has come about that in planning its 
curriculum Protestant religious instruction has paid scant 
attention to what God has been doing, through the Church, 
since the year 100 A.D. The Bible and the Bible alone 
has been the text-book of Protestants, with the result 
that generation after generation have grown up in almost 
complete ignorance of the history of the Church and the 
forms in which Christianity finds organized expression in 


166 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 


the world today. This ignorance cannot be allowed to 
continue. No one can understand anything aright unless 
he understands its history. And to expect men to be in¬ 
telligent Christians and good churchmen when they know 
nothing of the past from which they have come or of the 
present life and work of the Church would be as reason¬ 
able as to expect men to be good citizens who know 
nothing of American history and have never studied the 
development of our own institutions. 

A good point of departure for such a study is the his¬ 
tory of missions, for missions furnish at once one of the 
most interesting and one of the most instructive manifes¬ 
tations of contemporary Christianity. In foreign missions 
we see the Christian Church making earnest with the ideal 
of world-wide evangelization, facing the divisive influences 
of race, of class, of nationality, and grappling with them 
in original and courageous ways. In home missions we 
find the same difficulties facing us in even more personal 
and embarrassing fashion. The study of modern Chris¬ 
tian missions in America will dispel the complacency of 
many a conventional Christian and make him realize that 
there are no more difficult fields in the world than Ameri¬ 
can cities like New York and Chicago, where all the races 
of the world meet and where the problems of industrial 
strife, race rivalry, and national ambition confront us in 
their most extreme and perplexing forms. 

Of especial importance is a fuller understanding of 
Christian teaching in relation to the great social issues of 
the present day. The pulpit, allowing no opportunity 
for the give-and-take of discussion, has serious limitations 
as an agency for interpreting the meaning of Christianity 
for such mooted questions as face us in our industrial, 
social, and international life. The fundamental Christian 
principles must, of course, be interpreted from the pulpit 
but their more detailed application to concrete problems 
requires such an opportunity as the adult class affords 


TEACHING AGENCIES OF LOCAL CHURCH 167 

for discussion with those who are having practical ex¬ 
perience with these problems in their daily life. 

Such a class may sometimes profitably adopt a “seminar 
method” and make first-hand inquiries about the pressing 
problems of the community in which they live—juvenile 
delinquency, the public dance hall, the influence of the 
motion-picture theater, the housing situation, industrial 
conditions. Or a series of addresses by men who are ac¬ 
tively engaged in work for social welfare, followed by 
opportunity for questions and discussion, may bring the 
group face to face with questions of their community 
life and lead to new insights into social duty. 

An enlargement of the influence of the adult class in 
dealing with social questions in the light of Christianity 
may be found in the open forum, now beginning to find a 
place in the program of the Church. More than the pulpit, 
even more than the adult class, it affords an opportunity 
for hearing the various sides of a question, and of se¬ 
curing the alert participation of a large body of people. 
The very essence of the forum idea is open-minded 
search for truth, free from preconceived ideas or any 
imposition of authority. The number of Churches using 
this method of teaching, it must be confessed, is still very 
few, but enough has been done to demonstrate its value. 
It often plays the unique role of reaching many who do 
not attend the regular services of the Church and are 
quite uninterested in the ordinary Bible class. 

7. Training Classes for Teachers and Leaders. —Hap¬ 
pily it is beginning to be recognized that the teaching of 
a Sunday-School class involves something more than a 
desire to serve and an interest in children. It is a task 
requiring technical training, accurate knowledge, and a 
high degree of skill. Churches generally are attempting 
to provide training classes for the development of suc¬ 
cessful teachers and a considerable number of text-books 
have been written, dealing with the various phases of the 


168 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 


teacher’s work. Much of this lies beyond the resources 
of the average local Church, so earnest effort is being made 
to supplement these resources through community co¬ 
operation, denominational supervision, and summer 
schools. The community training schools now being held 
under some form of cooperation among the religious 
agencies of a city are a great advance upon what pre¬ 
vailed even a few years ago. Some of the denominational 
summer schools are giving especial attention to religious 
education. The conferences of the Missionary Education 
Movement, other summer conferences and the Schools 
of Missions are training leaders for mission study groups 
in local churches. 

This is all excellent, so far as it goes, but the method 
of recruiting teachers is still more or less haphazard and 
there is almost no provision for relating text-book study 
to practice teaching. The result of this is largely to di¬ 
vorce theory from practice in the application of princi¬ 
ples ; in many instances the teacher follows along in the 
old grooves, uninfluenced by his study in the training class. 
The church has still to learn how to incorporate laboratory 
methods in its training classes. As well expect to make 
a chemist by reading a text-book on chemistry, or an engi¬ 
neer by reading a text-book on physics and mathematics, 
as to make a teacher simply by studying a teacher-train¬ 
ing text-book. 

The same may be said, in some measure, of the training 
for other forms of service. It is customary to have train¬ 
ing classes for the teaching of missions, and it is held, 
in theory at least, that the leaders of Scout and Campfire 
groups, and of boys’ and girls’ clubs, need special prepa¬ 
ration. But the local Church is seldom able really to pro¬ 
vide it. The method generally followed is to place the 
responsibility for leadership in the hands of some young 
man or young woman, who is full of enthusiasm and who 
is clever at suggesting “stunts” but who knows nothing 
of the theory of education, nothing of what is being con- 


TEACHING AGENCIES OF LOCAL CHURCH 169 

temporaneously given to the same boys and girls in Sun¬ 
day School, and who knows practically nothing of the 
teaching value of the activities in which the group engages. 
One gains, no doubt, a certain facility in this hand-to- 
hand contact with young lives and an earnest-minded 
young person often is able to inspire the boys and girls 
to better living, but lack of experienced and mature over¬ 
sight is responsible for many failures and mistakes. If 
the training of Sunday-School teachers suffers from the 
absence of laboratory practice and the divorce of theory 
from experience, the training of group leadership—if 
such it may be called—suffers from the lack of text-book 
study and the divorce of practice from theory. 

The Church itself should be a great training school, 
developing men and women by means of the responsibili¬ 
ties it lays upon them. But the Church is hardly conscious 
of its teaching opportunity at this point and, lacking such 
consciousness, it permits the great mass of its membership 
to remain untrained. A few offices, such as those of 
deacon, trustee, clerk, treasurer, or Sunday-School super¬ 
intendent, are conferred, as honors, upon men and women 
who are known to be generally capable and trustworthy. 
But how often is any attempt made to train people for 
these positions, or any opportunity offered for learning 
the technique of such offices? In most cases it is rather 
the rule to retain in office indefinitely one who has shown 
himself efficient and reliable. There is almost no provi¬ 
sion for acquainting the membership at large with the 
experience of office-holding, or even of preparing those 
who are to hold office by a preliminary term of proba¬ 
tionary training. Moreover, in most instances, these and 
the other officers of the Church are apt to interpret their 
offices as tasks laid upon them to perform rather than as 
opportunities for leadership through which they shall train 
the membership of the Church as a whole. Only in com¬ 
paratively rare cases does the Church as a whole conceive 
of itself as an agency for mobilizing and utilizing the 


170 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 

entire membership in helpful community and world serv¬ 
ice. Even in such a matter as the leadership of the 
singing in the services of worship, many Churches still 
spend extravagant sums to hire professional quartets to 
sing to them instead of appropriating a much more mod¬ 
erate amount for developing the musical abilities of their 
own young people for a service which might be far more 
varied and inspiring than any quartet can render. 

II. Agencies Related to the Church 

In addition to the teaching agencies over which the local 
Church itself has direct control there are other important 
and far-reaching agencies in the community engaged in 
work which is educational and fundamentally, even when 
not avowedly, religious. Of these the Church which is 
thinking of its teaching work in terms of the whole com¬ 
munity and of the whole life of the individual must take 
careful account. 

i. The Young Men's and Young Women's Christian 
Association .—Of these agencies those most closely 
affiliated with the Churches are the Young Men’s and 
Young Women’s Christian Associations. Through their 
boys’ and girls’ departments these organizations seek to 
provide special opportunities for young people from 
twelve years of age and upward. While much of their 
work is social in nature, it is all pervaded by a strong 
religious purpose and includes both instructional and ex- 
pressional aspects of the teaching process. 

The Y.M.C.A. Program of Training for Christian 
Citizenship consists of two sections, one for boys of 12 to 
14 years of age, the other for boys 15 to 17 years old. 
Its aim is four-fold, to develop the boy physically, intel¬ 
lectually, religiously, and socially, and the program is 
closely linked up with all the normal interests of a boy's 


TEACHING AGENCIES OF LOCAL CHURCH 171 

life—such as nature, home, school, Church. 6 In various 
ways and by a somewhat elaborate system of credits, the 
program is intended to stimulate and motivate worth¬ 
while activities and preoccupy the boy’s life with interests 
that are inspiring and absorbing. By methods somewhat 
similar, but rather less elaborate, the Girl Reserves Pro¬ 
gram of the Y.W.C.A. seeks to develop an appreciation 
of all that goes into the making of wholesome woman¬ 
hood. Here also the program provides for two distinct 
age-groups: the girls who are still in the school grades, 
12 to 15 years of age, and those of high-school age, 
whether attending school or engaged as working girls. 

Both these agencies may be regarded as somewhat 
highly specialized educational instrumentalities, exercising 
an important and, in the aggregate, extensive influence 
upon the life of youth. They regard themselves as func¬ 
tioning in a special field for all the churches. Their 
policies and programs are not under the control of the 
Churches and it is not easy to determine just to what 
extent their work duplicates, competes with, or supple¬ 
ments that of the churches. Undoubtedly, by reason of 
an equipment and leadership which are often superior to 
those which the average Church is able to supply, they 
succeed in attracting a considerable number of those 
whom the Churches have failed to reach. In some cases, 
no doubt, and for a similar reason, boys and girls are 
drawn to the Christian Associations whom the Churches 
might have continued to serve. And it is confessedly 
not easy for the Associations to lead their young people 
into active membership and service in the regular activities 
of the Church. 

The most serious obstacle to effective cooperation be¬ 
tween the local Churches and the Christian Association 
lies in the fact that the programs of the Associations, 
like those of other agencies, prepared outside of the com- 

*In Canada the Christian Citizenship Training Program has 
been made a joint program of the Churches and the Y. M. C. A. 



172 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 

munity, at the state or national offices, are too rigidly 
standardized to be easily adapted to local conditions or 
the teaching programs of the local Churches. If some 
way could be devised whereby the teaching work and 
activities of the Associations could be in charge of a 
local board made up of representatives of the local 
Churches, who are in close touch with the teaching work 
of the Churches for these ages and for both sexes, such 
a board, studying the community problem as a whole, 
ought to be able to work out a joint cooperative program 
in which Churches and Associations working intelligently 
together would be able to accomplish the utmost for the 
boys and girls. 

2. Scout and Camp Fire Organizations .—Another 
group of agencies, somewhat less closely affiliated with 
the Churches and less distinctly religious, are the Boy 
Scouts, Girl Scouts, and Campfire Girls. Perhaps it is 
more accurate to speak of these as movements rather than 
as organizations, since they have no local habitat, as is 
the case with the Christian Associations, but make use of 
the facilities of the local church or other organization. 
In this respect they lend themselves more readily to in¬ 
corporation as a part of the teaching equipment of the 
local Church. At the same time they are also often 
utilized as a feature of the Roman Catholic Church, the 
Jewish Synagogue, a public school, or a playground as¬ 
sociation. 

The Boy Scouts aim to develop character and train 
for citizenship and service. The girls’ activities center 
about three main interests—home, health, and citizenship. 
None of these three organizations thinks of its program 
as a substitute for the Church’s program of religious edu¬ 
cation, but believes that it is a valuable supplement by 
providing recreational, expressional, and social activities. 

There is, of course, no reason why any local Church 
which can provide the requisite leadership may not have 


TEACHING AGENCIES OF LOCAL CHURCH 173 

these organizations as a part of its teaching machinery. 
The chief difficulty here, as in the other instances, lies in 
the present lack of correlation between the Scout and 
Campfire programs and the curriculum of instruction 
in the Church itself. 

III. Other Community Agencies 

1. The Public Library .—Much further removed from 
present contacts with the Churches, but needing to be 
taken into account in forming the whole program of reli¬ 
gious education, are various community agencies, such as 
the library and the recreational facilities. In the library 
we have an institution which, while avowedly public and 
secular, is potentially of great value as an adjunct of the 
Church school. Library boards are generally willing to 
supply good books for which there is any considerable 
demand. And young folks between the ages of 9 or 10 
and 14 or 15 spend, in many instances, nearly one-fourth 
of their spare time reading. Why should not the Churches 
unitedly take advantage of this opportunity and either 
adopt available lists or work out for themselves graded 
lists of books, classified according to age and subject, 
which would parallel the curriculum of religious instruc¬ 
tion and furnish experience of moral adventure, heroism, 
biography, travel, devotion, and self-sacrifice? By stimu¬ 
lating young people to make use of this literature, the 
teaching of the Sunday School and other agencies could 
be strongly reenforced. 

2. The Playground .—On the side of activity and ex¬ 
pression, a similar correlation may be made with the 
playground authorities. If the teacher in the Church 
school knows what plays and games occupy the leisure of 
the pupils, and knows also the character-making values of 
these plays, here will be a bond of connection between 
lessons and life that is most valuable. Clean sport, fair 
play, self-sacrifice, obedience to rules, team-cooperation, 


174 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 

skill, initiative, a sense of honor, chivalry, generous ap¬ 
preciation of an opponent—these and many other qualities 
—find expression and development in the spontaneous life 
of the playground. The problems of the playground may 
well form a basis of class discussions. On the other hand, 
many lessons taught in the Church school find ready illus¬ 
tration in the play-life of the pupil. Every teacher should 
have a classified list of plays and games, adapted to the 
different age-periods, and whenever possible teachers 
should also participate with their pupils in their play. 

3. Moving Pictures .—While educators are not in 
entire agreement as to the educational value of the motion 
picture, the general impression is that it is an agency of 
potentially great importance. Two questions affecting the 
Church’s teaching confront us—the undesirable character 
of many films shown in the theaters, and the educa¬ 
tional possibility of using films in the Church’s own pro¬ 
gram. Into the first perplexing problem we cannot enter 
here. As to the second, experience has shown that it is 
possible for the Churches to make good use of carefully 
chosen films, but the available films for this purpose, it 
must be confessed, are still few. As particularly suited 
to Church use may be mentioned, in addition to subjects 
from the Bible, films which illustrate the processes of 
nature, personal and public hygiene, common industries 
and vocations, travel, historical and biographical episodes. 
In any such program, it need hardly be said, the aim is not 
to furnish “bait” for the Churches but to use the appeal 
to the eye as a part of an educational enterprise. 

4. The Public School System .—That the American 
people intend to keep distinct and separate the State and 
the Church, and consequently the public school and the 
Church school, may be accepted as settled. It is the fixed 
policy of the State to send all the children to school. It 
should be equally the policy of the Churches to see that 
all children, except of those parents who positively forbid 


I 


TEACHING AGENCIES OF LOCAL CHURCH 175 

it, receive education in religion. This is being more and 
more strongly urged upon the Churches by educators in 
the public schools themselves. In a growing number of 
communities helpful adjustments have been made to 
facilitate the formation of week-day classes in religion. 
Again, in states like North Dakota and Colorado, the 
public schools have arranged to give credit for the 
teaching of high school pupils by the Churches whenever 
that teaching shall attain a specified standard. 

But there is need for much closer contact than that 
which exists in these exceptional communities. Sunday- 
School teachers need to know more intimately the moral 
and intellectual problems of boys and girls at school. They 
need to follow more closely the trend of the curriculum 
and the current methods of instruction. The teaching of 
Biblical geography, for example, should come at about the 
same time in Sunday Schools as similar teaching in the 
day school. Not a little historical and biographical and 
scientific material which has grown familiar through the 
day-school studies may well be utilized again in the 
Church school, from a somewhat different angle, as ma¬ 
terial for religious teaching. Problems of conduct which 
arise on the play-ground and in the school-room may be 
formulated and discussed in the session of the Sunday 
School. Bonds of association could thus be interwoven 
between the experiences of the Church school and those of 
the day school, interpreting the life of the day school in 
the light of the Christian religion and vitalizing the 
teaching of the Church school. 

The reference to the relation of the Church to the public 
school system introduces us to the rising movement for 
week-day religious education. This movement is still 
so much in the experimental stage, and is of such vital 
importance, that we shall consider it more fully in the 
following chapter. 


CHAPTER VIII 


THE NEW MOVEMENT FOR WEEK-DAY 
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 

If one were to make the statement that it is only re¬ 
cently that religious education has been thought of as an 
activity of the week-day, he would no doubt be challenged 
immediately by a number of organizations. For there 
have been, from the first years of the Christian era, classes 
and schools for religious instruction which met at other 
times than on Sunday. Even if one were to say that the 
movement for week-day religious education is new to 
modern times, the statement would be disputed. The 
advocates of parochial schools, pastors in charge of cate¬ 
chetical classes, leaders of various organizations such as 
the Y.M.C.A. and the Scouts, and many others would 
answer rightly that the idea is by no means a new 
discovery. 

But from another angle we may say that the movement 
which we have in mind is a new one. The impetus given 
to religious education during the week has come from 
none of these sources to any large extent. By week-day 
schools of religion we now mean the recent type of school 
which definitely seeks to set up a program of religious 
education as a part of the child's week-day school life. 
There is, in the minds of those responsible for this new 
agency, the aim of completing the training of every child 
by giving him, in a truly educational way, his religious 
heritage. Thus we find a type of school which is of com¬ 
paratively recent growth and quite different from any 
that have hitherto been established. 

The date of the beginnings of this movement is some¬ 
what difficult to determine. The Jewish and Lutheran 

176 


WEEK-DAY RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 177 

schools, as well as the Roman Catholic, go back some time. 
Among the Protestant schools those founded in Gary, 
Indiana, in the spring of 1914, represent the first definite 
attempt to think of week-day religious education as an 
integral part of the child’s school program. At first the 
movement grew slowly. In 1920 there began a very rapid 
extension of the idea, reports in a recent Survey 1 indicat¬ 
ing that in that year 77 schools were established. In the 
following year 131 others followed, and during the first 
two months of 1922, 25 more were reported. Precise 
figures for today are not available, but it is conservatively 
estimated that by this time there are probably 1,000 week¬ 
day schools of religion in existence in the United States. 
It is thus evident that the recent growth of the movement 
has been vigorous. This growth further distinguishes the 
type of religious education above defined from other 
efforts at religious development outside of Sunday. It 
also makes it imperative that we consider seriously the 
causes of the movement and its meaning with reference 
to the future of the educational work of the Church. 

1. Causes of the Week-Day Movement 

While a number of specific reasons might be given for 
the development of the movement for week-day religious 
education, all of them may be comprehended in two gen¬ 
eral statements. 

First, there has been deep concern because of the 
fruit, or lack of fruit, of recent religious effort and a con¬ 
viction that we must have more religious education. We 
seem to be facing a more difficult situation in moral and 

m ■ - * 

*Made early in 1922, by Erwin L. Shaver, for the Religious 
Education Association and the Committee on Social and Re¬ 
ligious Surveys. The Report is published in Religious Educa¬ 
tion for April, 1922. The full report of the Conference of the 
Religious Education Association at which the subject was dis¬ 
cussed is presented in “Week-Day Religious Education,” edited 
by H. F. Cope (Doran, 1922). 



178 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 

religious teaching than any which has presented itself for 
some years. The present wave of immorality, if such we 
may call it; social ills, such as race prejudice and war, 
crying aloud for some real cure; the condition of spiritual 
illiteracy of a people who know not their own beliefs or 
ethical standards; the increasingly difficult position of the 
Church with reference to society at large—all these are 
impelling reasons why more strenuous efforts to teach 
morality and religion are called for. Should we doubt 
this condition we have but to note the multiplicity of 
agencies aiming to do this very thing. Within the Church 
we have had a gradual accumulation of educational organ¬ 
izations, such as we have considered in the previous chap¬ 
ter. The foreign missionary enterprise and the home 
missionary program also are demanding more work along 
educational lines. Even outside the Church there are 
many agencies being established to develop the religious 
and moral life of the child. The child, as a result, is being 
pulled and hauled this way and that so strenuously that 
one wonders that he knows which way to turn. And now 
another bidder for his attention has come upon the scene. 
This movement for week-day religious instruction is 
additional evidence of the feeling that we must have more 
religious education. 

A second reason which lies back of the week-day move¬ 
ment, and one which is perhaps more peculiar to it than to 
any other phase of the demand for religious education, is 
the new tendency to apply educational principles more 
thoroughly and strictly to religious development. While 
the application of this new point of view has been slowly 
creeping into the Sunday School, and is the compelling 
force behind a number of other religious-educational insti¬ 
tutions, it has not yet come into its own. There has been 
a demand for a real school with religious ideals. Ever 
since Church and State have been wisely separated, some 
efforts have been put forth to teach religion in the schools. 
But we have already seen that these efforts have proved 


I 


WEEK-DAY RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 179 

wholly inadequate. The movement which we are consid- 
ering is the latest answer to the call for a truly educa¬ 
tional program applied to religious growth. The week¬ 
day school of religion is avowedly educational in method. 
Its aims, its methods of organization, and its methods of 
teaching are all based upon the claim that it is a school 
and seeks to be classed as such. 

The relationship which this newcomer bears to the 
Sunday School on the one hand and to the public school 
on the other is of especial significance. Some of these 
new schools are viewed by their promoters as extensions 
of the Church’s educational work into the week, reaching 
out for and cooperating with the public school. Others 
think of their week-day school of religion as rather the 
reaching out of the public school toward the Church; that 
is, the classes in religion are regarded as supplementary 
to the public-school course of study and are expressions 
of the friendship which the public school bears to the 
Church. Since religion cannot be taught in the public 
school, the week-day schools thus partake of the nature 
of parallel training schools of Christian citizenship. In 
a few cases the religious training during the week is a 
sort of independent piece of work linking the two educa¬ 
tional institutions, Church and State, but free from the 
restrictions incident to both. But in and through all the 
purposes back of the venture is the deep-seated conviction 
that religious development must come through a thorough 
application of educational methods to the field of religion. 

2. Present Status of Week-Day Schools 

We cannot here go extensively into the details of the 
work of the week-day schools, but we may hope to present 
sufficient facts to be able to understand their place in the 
modern program of religious education, to judge their 
value and to offer suggestions for future guidance. 


180 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 


(a) The Aims of Week-day Schools .—One cannot 
estimate fairly the work of such schools unless he goes 
into the motives which prompt their establishment. These 
motives differ. The most prominent aim in the minds of 
those responsible has been suggested above, the desire 
to meet a condition of great spiritual illiteracy. In a few 
cases Churches seem to conceive of the founding of a 
week-day school chiefly as a further buttressing of their 
ecclesiastical stronghold; lest their Church be lost in the 
social changes taking place, a week-day school is added to 
the teaching agencies of the Church already existing. 
With many leaders there is a feeling that the Sunday 
School, as an educational institution, is inadequate or 
has largely failed. The aim, in their case, is the creation 
of a real teaching institution. Some of the Churches 
hope thereby to educate their own children religiously; 
others conceive the mission of the week-day school to 
be the reaching of those who are not touched by religious 
influences. This difference in aim, as well as the differences 
noted above, makes it evident that there is by no means 
a clear conception of precisely what the week-day schools 
are to do, other than, in general, to extend religious^ 
education. While some may be clear as to the aim of 
their particular school, the range of aims is so wide and 
so often contradictory as to render any one inclusive state¬ 
ment of aims impossible. 

As to what these schools are to aim to teach, there is 
considerable diversity of opinion. Some limit their work 
to the teaching of the Bible; others include courses in 
social service and missions; some provide for a period of. 
worship; a considerable number arrange for some kind 
of expressional work. These aims are, of course, all re¬ 
garded as but proximate and means to the ultimate goal of 
a fuller development of the religious life. 

(b) Types of Schools .—In the main, most of the exist¬ 
ing schools belong to one of three types, classified on the 


WEEK-DAY RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 181 

basis of the management of the school. The first type, 
known as the denominational, or individual Church, 
school, includes those which are governed by the local 
Church and have no connection with any other school in 
the community. Such schools maintain this independent 
position in some cases because of denominational 
loyalty; in others, because no other school exists with 
which to cooperate. Some such schools are forward- 
looking as to aims and methods; others are exceedingly 
conservative. A school of this type works at a disadvan¬ 
tage as to cost of operation and the employment of skilled 
supervisors, but being more easily able to coordinate the 
week-day with the Sunday School it can offer a more 
unified program of religious education for the children 
whom it reaches. 

A second type of school, the denominational-cooper¬ 
ating type, differs from the first largely in the fact that it 
cooperates with other schools to promote the general in¬ 
terests of all. Each school is independent in matters per¬ 
taining to its own government and teaching, but such 
questions as the securing of public-school time or granting 
of credits, advertising the movement, and the like, are 
given into the hands of a committee representing the 
different interests involved. In this respect this type of 
school has advantages over the first type; otherwise there 
is little difference. 

A third type, distinct from those described above, is 
commonly known as the community school. A more 
accurate name is the neighborhood {or city) system of 
schools, for these schools, though less sectarian and more 
widely democratic than the others, are not representative 
of the entire community, which includes Roman Catholics' 
and Jews. The governing board is made up of repre¬ 
sentatives from the several Churches. The course of 
study is uniform for all the denominations joining in the 
system; other matters also are handled without regard 
to denominational lines. This type of school quite fre- 


182 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 


quently thinks of its task as training for Christian citi¬ 
zenship. It is usually in a position to make a strong 
impression upon the public. The Survey reported 44 of 
these systems existing early in 1922, maintaining 169 sepa¬ 
rate schools. 

In the matter of government the school at Malden, 
Massachusetts, is quite different from any of those in¬ 
cluded in the above type-classifications. It is supported 
and maintained by the interested Protestant community 
but apart from any Church control. The schools at 
Evanston, Illinois, began in a similar way but the trial 
ended by providing a closer relationship to the Churches. 

In general, one may say that there is no one type of 
week-day school as yet which seems suited to all situations 
and that further experimentation needs to be carried on 
before final judgment can be passed. 

(c) The Organization and Administration of Schools. 
—Most of the existing schools are supported by the 
local Church budgets, a considerable number by sub¬ 
scriptions taken in the community. In some cases a 
school or system of schools is maintained by pro-rata 
assessment of expenses among the several Churches co¬ 
operating. Occasionally more than one means of de¬ 
fraying the cost of the school is used. While there are 
a number of schools which are maintained with prac¬ 
tically no expense, the larger number need money to do 
the work they have undertaken. On the average the 
existing schools are run for about $200 a year. The Sur¬ 
vey reports 89 schools costing over this amount, one 
school expending $2,500 a year. On a basis of cost per 
pupil the amount ranges from nothing in many schools 
to amounts as high as $17 a year. The median cost is 
about $1 annually for each pupil. 

Most of this money is expended for workers’ salaries, 
some for office expense, and some for text-books and 
materials. Supervisors’ salaries, on a yearly basis, range 


WEEK-DAY RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 183 

from $36 to $3,600, the median being $222. It must be 
borne in mind, however, that in many cases this amount 
includes payment for other services within the church. 
Where teachers are paid, we have a range of salaries from 
$68 to $2,500 a year, with a median salary of $600. 
Most frequently teachers are paid for part time at an 
hourly rate of $1.25 (median). From these figures one 
gets some idea of the extent to which the churches recog¬ 
nize professional service in religious education. 

The buildings used for week-day instruction in most 
cases are Churches. Some schools utilize the parish house 
of the Church; some have their classes meet in rooms of 
the public school. In a small proportion of cases such 
buildings as the Y.M.C.A. or a settlement house are 
used. The Latter Day Saints provide special buildings 
for their schools, as is the case in one of the schools of 
the Gary system. The rooms as a whole are lacking either 
in the school-room atmosphere, on the one hand, or the 
environment conducive to worship on the other, for where 
one of these features is good, the other is almost always 
lacking. Most of the schools for week-day instruction 
in religion have wisely avoided the use of public-school 
buildings, lest such a practise be misunderstood and open 
the way for opposition. 

The equipment of these buildings and class-rooms varies 
considerably. A few schools use pews or benches and 
find artificial light a necessity. Most of them provide 
better seating facilities, more like the public school, by 
using chairs or school seats. Work tables or school 
desks are also provided in most class-rooms. Maps and 
blackboards are supplied to a reasonable extent. When 
it comes to library equipment the reports indicate less 
generous provision. Only a few schools furnish the 
pupils with a reference library; more have a teachers* 
library. Pianos are quite frequently found and occa¬ 
sionally equipment for handwork. As compared with 
the public school equipment, that which is used in the 


184 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 

week-day schools of religion is rather meager and poor, 
but as compared with that of the Sunday School some 
advance has been made. 

Facts as to the organization for instruction are indica¬ 
tive of the present status of the movement. A few 
schools are organized for carrying on two grades (years) 
of work only; about as many provide for a full thirteen 
•grades, including a kindergarten and four years of high 
school. Between these two extremes the remaining schools 
are grouped, the median number of grades or years of 
work offered being seven. This does not mean, however, 
that these grades always meet as separate classes. Fre¬ 
quently several meet as one class, the most usual arrange¬ 
ment being two grades to each class. Perhaps two-thirds 
of the schools hold their classes during public school 
hours. The pupils in that case are excused from a study 
period, a play period, an auditorium period, or from 
recitation in some elective subject. Where this is not 
done the religious instruction is given after school or at 
some other convenient time outside school hours. Most 
of the classes vary in length from a half hour to an hour, 
although a few schools hold sessions of an hour and a 
half. In most of the schools one recitation a week is the 
rule; a number have their pupils meet twice a week. 
On the average the pupils receive about one hour a week 
of religious training. 

The number of pupils receiving week-day instruction 
last year was approximately 50,000, with the enrolment 
of girls slightly higher than that of boys. The smallest 
school reported has 4 scholars; the largest 519. The 
median number of pupils in a single school is 106. The 
heaviest enrolment is found in grades four to six. When 
but a few grades are provided, it is generally these that 
compose the school. The percentage of attendance centers 
about 91. Various reasons seem to account for the 
attendance of scholars upon this new type of school. In 
some cases it is due to the fact that it is a new thing; 


WEEK-DAY RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 185 

in others a craving for something to do is the power 
of attraction. The school by its very nature is selective, 
only the more serious-minded coming to week-day classes. 

The week-day classes reporting in the Survey were em¬ 
ploying 888 teachers, all but 30 of them being part-time 
workers. Over 60 per cent, of the total give their serv¬ 
ices without pay. In some schools pastors and educa¬ 
tional directors are doing all or part of the teaching. 
About half of the number have had a college or normal 
school training. The remainder have had training of a 
high-school grade or less. When it comes to educational 
experience, about the same proportion exists. One-half 
have taught in some kind of a public school. The other 
half are limited in teaching experience to Sunday School 
or special work. 

Practically all the week-day schools have someone act¬ 
ing as a supervisor of the work being done. Often the 
teacher acts as supervisor also; sometimes the pastor or 
educational director supervises. Over 20 per cent, of 
these supervisors are full-time workers, indicating a 
growing tendency toward a professionalizing of the week¬ 
day work. Almost all of these supervisors have had 
either a college or normal-school education. Slightly less 
than half have studied in a theological seminary. Only 
a little over a third, however, have studied in the field 
of religious education, to say nothing of taking an ade¬ 
quate professional course in that subject. Two-thirds of 
the supervisors have had experience in public education. 

(d) The Course of Study .—In the courses of study 
used in the week-day schools there is also considerable 
variety. In a number the Bible is the only text used. In 
some schools, particularly in those emphasizing denomi¬ 
national loyalty, courses prepared with their own needs 
in mind are offered. Several denominations are using 
courses which seek to unify the work of Sunday and 
week day. The majority of schools, however, are using 


186 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 


non-denominational courses, such as the University of 
Chicago, Scribner’s or the Abingdon series. Generally 
speaking, the course material is less distinctly denomina¬ 
tional than that taught in the Sunday School. In a few 
places special courses of an eclectic nature have been 
prepared as most suitable for local conditions. 

In the week-day school, as in the Sunday School, the 
“knowledge” view of the curriculum still seems to be 
predominant. A course of study is looked upon as so 
many ideas and facts which are to be made the possession 
of the pupil. It is apparently assumed that the goal of 
religious training will be attained if only the child mas¬ 
ters the facts. The texts are studied and recited upon; 
the truths, often in catechetical or Biblical verse form, are 
memorized. The courses for the most part differ little 
from each other except as to externals. Some are more 
attractively bound; others are more interestingly arranged 
or written; a few contain extra-Biblical stories as well as 
Biblical. The aim seems to be to make the truth more 
attractive. While much of the material is a vast improve¬ 
ment over the older Sunday-School lessons, in most cases 
the viewpoint of the curriculum is essentially the same. 
There is not very much attention paid to worship as a 
part of the religious experience. Some leaders feel that 
this should be left for the Sunday session. Many con¬ 
ceive of intellectual instruction as the main task. There is 
a tendency to include some kinds of activity, such as hand¬ 
work, dramatization, or Christian service activities, as a 
means of “expressing the idea” which has been learned. 

In general, there is considerable diversity of opinion 
as to what ought to be taught. The fact that many schools 
are not satisfied with any available course of study, to¬ 
gether with the use of eclectic courses, gives evidence of 
an increasing feeling that a course of religious training 
is something more than a set of texts to be learned. 
Many leaders are asking for something different, but their 
wants are not yet satisfied. 


WEEK-DAY RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 187 

(e) The Method of Teaching .—Probably most of the 
teachers are hardly conscious of using any specific 
method of teaching. Nevertheless, in mode of approach 
and types of procedure, a number of ways of seeking to 
develop the religious life of children are found. In a 
considerable number of schools the methods used are still 
centered about the drill process. The aim is to get the 
pupils to repeat certain truths which they have memo¬ 
rized. In some schools the Church catechism is used, 
with interpretation added. In others the memory work 
takes the form of Bible verses and the teaching consists 
in hearing the verses repeated. In addition pupils are 
drilled on the books of the Bible, the location of places, 
or stories of Biblical heroes. 

Another general type is that in which the teacher 
is the actor and the pupils are passive spectators. The 
lecture or persuasive sermon is used as the means of in¬ 
fluencing a change of life in the scholar. This method 
in its purity is not common, but it permeates much of 
the other kinds of teaching, often overshadowing more 
educational efforts at developing religious life. The 
teacher conceives it her task to say what ought to be said, 
and as long as the pupils are passively interested and do 
not run away, she is hopeful of results. 

A third method provides for more participation by 
the scholars. Sometimes this activity takes the form 
of a live discussion; at other times it is exceedingly 
difficult to get the pupils to say anything. Discussion 
of intellectual problems of various kinds and from vari¬ 
ous sources often comprises the activity. Some teachers 
are not satisfied with a method which limits activity to 
verbal discussion. They consider their teaching com¬ 
plete only when the class-room work includes physical 
and social elements. We have two kinds of this latter 
activity, depending upon the viewpoint of the teacher. 
The line of demarcation is quite distinct. In the large 
majority of cases the pupil’s activity is planned for by 


188 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 

the teacher in order to make the lesson more vivid. The 
scholars make models, color pictures, play the story. A 
few teachers, happily, consider that all activities engaged 
in by their pupils may be religious experiences and work 
for intelligent Christian purposing and self-directed execu¬ 
tion of Christian projects. They conceive their task as 
teachers to be the friendly guidance of their pupils in 
the selection, planning, and carrying out of those enter¬ 
prises which mark the life of a true Christian. 

(f) Relation to Other Educational Agencies. —A dis¬ 
cussion of the present status of the week-day movement 
would be incomplete without some mention of the rela¬ 
tion which it bears to other agencies working with child 
life. While we might desire that some form of coopera¬ 
tion be had with the home, it must be said that thus far 
very little has been done in this direction. There is 
nothing to do but to express a hope that these two 
agencies may be able to get together in the formulation 
of a more definite policy of mutual helpfulness. As to 
such organizations as the Y. M. C. A. and the Scouts, 
the same must also be said. Each is working along its 
own lines and the week-day school does not relate its 
work to their activities. 

When we turn to the public school a different situation 
is presented. The week-day school of religion is a defi¬ 
nite attempt to correlate the child’s week-day educational 
program, fitting religious education and public education 
together. The granting of time by the public school is 
one aspect of this relationship. Another is the giving of 
public-school credit by some of the school boards and 
principals. In the high school this credit takes the form 
of allowing the pupil to substitute the course in the school 
of religion for one of the elective subjects. In the grades 
it is classed as a supplementary study, but one which is 
not required for promotion to another grade. The pupils 
are excused at the parents’ request from free periods 


WEEK-DAY RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 189 

or elective subjects to attend the classes in religion. Most 
of the public schools exercise some kind of supervision 
with respect to the work of the week-day classes in re¬ 
ligion. The most usual form is that of keeping a record 
of attendance. Although many principals reserve the 
right to check up upon the conduct or work of pupils, 
very few exercise the privilege. They would like to keep 
the work of the two schools distinct as far as possible, 
without being unfair to the school of religion. While the 
public-school officials expect the teachers of religion to 
possess high qualifications, little is done to enforce 
the maintenance of such a standard. The unofficial rela¬ 
tions between the officers and teachers of the public-school 
system and the workers in the week-day schools are most 
kindly. The former are generally glad to assist in the 
promotion of schools of religion. In a few instances 
the public-school teacher uses the material of the lesson 
in religion as a basis of theme work, which suggests an 
attempt at unifying the educational experience of the 
child. Further than these external relationships the 
correlation of these two educational agencies has not 
gone. 

Since the week-day school is a religious institution, we 
are interested also in the relationship which exists be¬ 
tween it and the Church. Most of the schools are closely 
connected with the Church in government and aim. Three- 
fourths of the children attending them belong to some 
Sunday School. In spite of these facts there is very 
little correlation. Only a few Churches have a unified 
educational program with the week-day school as an in¬ 
tegral part of it. The higher educational standard aimed 
at, the separate governing body, the employment of the 
professional teacher of religion, and other factors, make 
for separation. The pupil feels this and it causes a fur¬ 
ther split in his educational consciousness. Some endeavors 
at a division of lesson material have been made, for the 
sake of unity, but it is doubtful if this method is ade- 


190 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 

quate. There is need for serious study at this point. 
The way out seems to be along the line of closer atten¬ 
tion to the process by which a child develops religiously. 

3. The Week-Day School Evaluated 

On the three most important aspects of the week-day 
movement—the aims, the curriculum, and the teaching 
process—we need to evaluate, so far as possible, the 
present development. 

(a) Aims of the Week-Day School. —The existing dis¬ 
agreement among leaders in the week-day schools as to 
their aims results in confusion and lack of definiteness 
in all phases of the work. The only point at which the 
promoters seem to be agreed is in promoting religious 
education, but they have left the definition of religion 
out of account. When religion was defined simply in 
terms of creed, one had only to state that he aimed to get 
the child to believe his way. Now that large numbers in 
all our Churches are thinking of religion in larger terms, 
we are facing a more difficult situation. The time has 
come to restate our aims in religious education. In 
place of purely intellectual instruction we must substi¬ 
tute the development of adequate living: life must re¬ 
place knowledge; character must be our goal rather than 
mere belief. It is to this conviction that the week-day 
movement is leading us. We must satisfactorily define 
our destination before zve can move forward zvith zngor 
and success. 

(b) The Week-Day School Curriculum. —The “knowl¬ 
edge view” of the course of study has been foremost in 
the minds of those who build the courses for week-day 
schools, as is true of most of the other institutions for 
religious education. A great sign of hope, however, is 
the awakening consciousness of the inadequacy of a course 


WEEK-DAY RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 


191 

based upon such a view. We are coming to see that it 
fails to take into account the fact that life is more than 
knowledge, that growth, religiously as well as in other 
respects, is dependent upon action and feeling as well as 
thinking. The knowledge view also fails to recognize 
the unity of the growth-process. There can be no transfer 
of ideas into action unless those ideas have previously 
been associated with that action. If the aim of our relig¬ 
ious training is Christian living, that training must be 
based upon living itself. What we need is not merely a 
series of lessons hut a course of experiences in Christian 
living , of such a nature that each experience leads to a 
desire to live the Christian life in a still larger circle. 

In such a program of activity all values, including the 
Biblical, are conserved and enriched. The nearest ap¬ 
proaches to it at the present moment are probably the 
Canadian Standard Efficiency Program and the Y.M.C.A. 
Christian Citizenship Training Program. To introduce 
such programs, however, without understanding their 
purposes and methods would be futile. 

(c) The Process of Teaching .—As might be expected 
from the above tendencies, the teaching process in the 
week-day school is in need of vital transformation. The 
imparting-of-knowledge method, dependent upon force 
and stern authority in the days of our forefathers, and 
carried on from that time to the present by “sugar- 
coating” devices, must give way to a method of directing 
social activity. In such direction provision must be made 
for self-initiative, democratic cooperation, and discrimina¬ 
tive thinking on the part of boys and girls. It is this 
view which is prevailing in our better public schools. 
Public-school leaders, who are acquainted with this ap¬ 
proach to the teaching process, are anxious that the 
leaders in the schools of religion follow the same method. 
Helping children to engage in Christian enterprises which 
they choose for themselves and assisting them so to judge 
the experience which they have had that they are led on 


192 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 

to further and larger enterprises—this is the place of 
the teacher of religion. 

It is thus seen that there is an insistent demand for 
changes which are almost revolutionary in our entire 
process of religious education. The week-day movement, 
which is developing with such promise of success, has 
probably done more than any other institution to make us 
conscious of a need for change. We are faced with a 
dilemma. We find the causes of the week-day movement 
in two great demands, the demand for more religious 
education on the one hand, and the insistence upon the 
application of educational principles on the other. To 
plant more and more institutions of religious education, 
as fast as we can, but at the sacrifice of educational prin¬ 
ciples, will not carry us far ahead. If, on the other hand, 
we stress modern methods of education, which is the 
avowed purpose of the week-day movement, any sacrifice 
in the numbers of schools will be more than compensated 
for by the new quality of work. 

4. The Future of the Movement 

A new movement in the field of religious education is 
before us, calling for assistance. To find a constructive 
path of advance will have value not only in the case of 
the week-day school, but for all religious education as 
well. In the light of our study the following suggestions 
for the future would seem to be important. 

(a) There Must Be an Increased Educational Em¬ 
phasis. —Regardless of the number of schools founded, 
there should be a searching examination of educational 
theory and practice as it is to be found in the best centers 
of education. The principles and practices thus discovered 
should be applied earnestly to the field of religious educa¬ 
tion in general and the new week-day school in particular. 
Even if it means that we found few new schools, we 


WEEK-DAY RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 


193 

must follow this policy. Widespread establishment of 
organizations which are called schools of religion but 
which fail when measured by educational standards, in¬ 
vites ridicule of the Church’s work on the part of edu¬ 
cators and, on our own part, dismay. Delaying for a 
time our interest in numbers of schools, we must con¬ 
centrate upon the educational emphasis in religion. We 
need to restate our aims; the course of study must be 
reorganized upon a better basis; the teaching process 
must be approached from the daily lives of boys and 
girls. If religion is of equal value with the development 
of skill of hand and keenness of thinking, surely it is 
justified in asking that the best educational methods be 
applied to its development. Our choice of educational 
standards is a measure of the value we place upon our 
religion. 

(b) This Means That Experimentation Will Have to Be 
Carried On .—If we are convinced that radical changes 
are needed, new methods should be tried out. Many 
agencies, including the educational boards of the 
Churches, will have to set going experiments based upon 
modern educational theory. It may be that a consider¬ 
able period of time will have to elapse before we have 
a full program and a method worthy of recommending to 
the Churches. We want the best and that means trial 
and error and renewed search. If the Government, in 
its agricultural and war departments, can set aside large 
sums of money and designate trained men to discover 
new ways and means of farming and carrying on war, 
why should not the Christian Church adopt the principle 
of experimentation and set aside schools of religion as 
experimental centers, with adequate equipment, and allow 
them freedom to discover the best ways of Christian 
education ? 

In the case of the week-day school we are face to face 
with a real opportunity. It is new; its leaders are open- 


194 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 

minded; it is unencumbered with traditions as to curri¬ 
culum and use of time. Before it becomes crystallized 
in ways that are out of date educationally, shall we not 
pause and view the possibilities before us? Let us open 
the way for these schools to be set up as experimental 
centers for evolving the best methods of religious edu¬ 
cation. 

(c) An Adequate Leadership Must Be Trained. —All 
this makes necessary the training of efficient leaders. We 
have the beginnings of a professional leadership in a 
small number of supervisors and teachers in the week¬ 
day movement who are giving their entire time to the 
work. The number, however, is quite insufficient to meet 
the demands with which we are confronted. Serious and 
definite efforts must be made to supply trained workers 
for the new type of religious education. Our colleges 
and seminaries must be equipped with departments of 
religious education competent to furnish them. The work 
of training leaders cannot be turned over to any member 
of the faculty who happens to take an interest. Nor can 
the Church leave the entire responsibility to the colleges 
and seminaries and simply ask them to turn out leaders. 
There must be a definite understanding that such leaders 
are wanted and the young men and women who are called 
to the teaching profession in the service of the Church 
must be assured a place worthy of their preparation. 

(d) The Entire Religious-Educational Program Must 
Be Correlated. —The existence of the week-day school 
and the Sunday School side by side compels us to face 
squarely the matter of correlation. In place of division 
of interests and competition of programs, we must unify 
the agencies that seek to help the boys and girls in their 
growth toward maturity. It is not enough that the week¬ 
day movement and the Sunday School be fitted together. 
That is essential but will not solve the real problem. Our 


WEEK-DAY RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 195 

trouble is not at this point alone. All the other agencies 
—young people’s society, mission study groups, Y.M.C.A. 
and Y.W.C.A., Scouts, and various organizations that 
make contributions to a full program of religious edu¬ 
cation—are usually unrelated and often rival claim¬ 
ants for the same children’s time. We need to face 
our educational task as a whole and cease wasting our 
energy in petty competition among various agencies. This 
question of securing a unified program is so important that 
we shall study it fully in the following chapter. 

If the week-day school, as we have described it, is 
seen not to be such a remarkable thing as it was sup¬ 
posed to be, there is no reason for discouragement. That 
we do not continually congratulate ourselves upon our 
great accomplishments is no indication of retrogression. 
The greatest danger is that we should become easily 
satisfied. The week-day movement is not a failure; it is 
a success. It has done some things which, to be sure, it 
did not intend to do, but it has revealed to us our position. 
It has shown us that we need more, or rather, better, 
education in religion. It has called to our attention the 
fact that the child’s religious development is a matter for 
the week-day as well as for Sunday. It has caused us 
to question and restate our aims. It has given us a new 
vision of the curriculum and of the teaching process. 
It has summoned us to unify our many-sided program 
of religious education. These are unlooked-for contribu¬ 
tions, but they are blessings in disguise. 


CHAPTER IX 


SECURING A UNIFIED EDUCATIONAL PRO¬ 
GRAM FOR THE CHURCH 

The present organization of the local Church for its 
teaching work, as reviewed in the two preceding chapters, 
reveals a wealth of existing agencies and a large amount 
of educational effort The impression made upon us, 
however, is one of confusion and inefficiency. Instead of 
an educational program as a whole, consciously prepared 
from the standpoint of ministering to the full develop¬ 
ment of the individual who is the object of all our teach¬ 
ing, we have a series of partial programs, often competing 
with each other for the time of the same individuals, each 
seeking to secure attention practically regardless of the 
contributions made by others. 

The sum of the matter is that we have been trying to 
meet our responsibility for religious education by increas¬ 
ing the number of agencies rather than by planning care¬ 
fully for a single rounded and comprehensive program 
designed to secure the full development of the person 
taught. It is inconceivable that we should continue to 
be satisfied with a method under which each organization 
presses its own special program and it is no one’s re¬ 
sponsibility to consider what program will best serve the 
whole development of the whole man. 

i. The Need for a Unified Program in the Local 
Church 

What is urgently needed in the local Church is a cen¬ 
tral body which shall be responsible for its whole teaching 
work, whose business it shall be to study its whole educa- 

196 


UNIFIED EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM 


197 

tional problem and plan comprehensively for it. Only 
in this way can the many unrelated agencies—Sunday 
School, mission study class, young people’s society, week¬ 
day school, Daily Vacation Bible School, and the other 
organizations—be related to each other in such a way 
as to secure an effective educational plan. 

Such a committee on religious education (or whatever 
it may be called) will study carefully the local situation 
and discover the number of children, youth, and adults 
for whose teaching it is properly responsible. It will 
outline in detail the material and the methods necessary 
in order to supply what these persons ought to have at 
every stage of their development. It will appraise sym¬ 
pathetically the resources available in each existing agency 
and suggest modifications and adjustments which any of 
these should make either in program or method in order 
to fit in more helpfully with the work of the others. It 
will give due consideration to the influences which oper¬ 
ate helpfully upon them from other sources, such as the 
home, the library, the public school, the community center. 
It will develop plans for the selection and training of 
teachers and leaders in the various activities of the Church 
and the community. It will undertake to secure adequate 
rooms and equipment for all the teaching work of the 
Church and arrange a schedule for the various agencies, 
in order that these may be used to the best advantage. It 
will make an annual estimate of the cost of the entire 
edocational program, to be raised as a part of the 
Church’s regular budget for current expenses. 

Such an educational plan means the development of 
what may rightly be called the (( Church School'—not as 
an additional agency or a new name for an old agency, 
but as the correlation of all the many phases of the teach¬ 
ing work of the Church. It implies that the Church, as 
such—not simply certain organizations or agencies—feels 
its corporate responsibility for exercising the teaching 
function and proposes to take it seriously. 


198 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 

A carefully formulated program of teaching such as this 
requires skilled supervision. A Church school, properly 
conducted, with all its departments harmoniously adjusted 
and in working order, will need a trained superintendent 
and a staff of assistants, their number depending upon the 
size and resources of the Church. In some instances this 
responsibility may devolve upon the pastor, if he has the 
requisite training; in the larger Churches, upon a director 
of religious education. In any case, the task is a technical 
one, calling for a high degree of knowledge, experience, 
and skill. The director of religious education is more 
than a business executive; he is an educator, familiar with 
the religious problems of childhood and youth; a tactful 
manager, knowing how to secure team work between 
pupils and teachers as well as between the leaders of the 
different organizations which make up the school as a 
whole; and an interpreter, making clear to leaders the 
values which lie in their respective tasks, and to parents 
and to the community the needs which must be served. 

What has been said regarding the need of organizing 
the work of the many diverse educational factors into 
one closely articulated program for the whole Church 
is as yet mainly a counsel of perfection. Few, if any. 
Churches can claim that this ideal has yet been achieved. 
But the trend of progress is all in this direction. Many 
Churches have a committee on religious education charged 
with oversight of all the teaching work, though it has 
not always won for itself sufficient prestige to be able to 
deal vigorously and constructively with local agencies. In 
some cases it is composed of the executives of the Sunday 
School, Young People’s Society, Missionary Committee, 
and similar organizations and finds itself hampered by 
the disposition of each of these officials to regard himself 
as the representative and champion of the interests of his 
particular organization rather than as an advocate of the 
best possible system of teaching and training for the 
youth of that locality, by whatever agency. Sometimes 


UNIFIED EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM 


199 

the Sunday School regards itself as the logical common 
denominator, inasmuch as its classes touch all ages, and 
feels that the Young People’s Society and the Missionary 
Committee should come in as subordinate parts of its own 
organization. In other localities where an enthusiasm has 
been created for week-day religious education the energies 
flow out in this direction, without any special regard for 
what the Sunday School is now doing or any effort to 
relate the week-day school to the existing curricula of 
the Sunday School and other agencies. Seldom do we 
find a Church which has both the ability and the courage 
and also the resources to enable it to grapple afresh with 
its teaching problem and organize itself effectively into 
a unified agency for accomplishing its whole teaching 
task. 

It is not altogether surprising that this should be the 
case. It is only very recently that there has been any 
real comprehension of the complexity and delicacy and 
difficulty of the Church’s teaching task. Now, however, 
the time has come when the situation must be faced and 
dealt with positively. We must have a program that 
thinks first and only of the individual to he taught and 
thinks of him as a whole. He will never he properly 
served by any combination of unrelated agencies, each 
of which is planning for only a segment of the indi¬ 
vidual's life, without regard to a general plan for the 
development of his life as a unified whole. 

2. The Need for a Unified Program for the Com¬ 
munity as a Whole 

To get a unified program of religious education for 
the parish is not enough. Outside the parish are other 
parishes; outside all of the parishes, as now conceived, 
are hosts of children, young people, and adults for whom 
the Church is responsible. The responsibility of the 
Church as a whole is coterminous with the community. 

In the development of an adequate educational system 


200 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 


for the whole community the Church is now hampered at 
various points. We may summarize the situation as fol¬ 
lows : 

(a) It is hampered, in its attempt to provide for all 
the youth of the community or neighborhood, from the 
fact that it must share with many other Churches a gen¬ 
eral responsibility for community welfare. In early New 
England the Church was definitely regarded as existing 
for the whole community and the community was gen¬ 
erally called upon, through taxation, for its support. But 
with the free development of independent Churches and 
denominations parish lines have become obliterated, so 
that several Churches of different denominations, with 
buildings situated in close proximity to each other, are 
drawing their membership from the same geographical 
area. The result of this tendency has been to weaken 
a sense of responsibility for any definite area or any 
defined group outside its own present membership. Very 
often a Church does not know what its own constituency 
is or should be, as distinguished from the constituencies 
of other Churches. This uncertainty of community re¬ 
lationship has often been disastrous, leading to the over¬ 
looking of considerable areas of the population, especially 
those who are most in need of being served. A Roman 
Catholic Church considers itself responsible for a defi¬ 
nite area or parish and can lay its hands upon children of 
Catholic parentage anywhere in that community. A 
Protestant Church generally cannot, nor will it be pos¬ 
sible for the independent Protestant organizations to deal 
similarly with Protestant children except as the move¬ 
ment for cooperation or union proceeds much further 
than it has gone at present. 

Having no common community plan and relying upon 
haphazard contacts or upon competitive “contests” as a 
means of recruiting Sunday-School membership, the 
Churches find themselves confronted at present with the 


UNIFIED EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM 201 

fact that in the United States and Canada there are but 
some 20,000,000 persons (of all ages) enrolled in Protest¬ 
ant Sunday Schools; while in Continental United States, 
exclusive of Canada, there are over 27,000,000 children 
and youth (under 25 years of age) nominally Protestant 
who are not enrolled in any Sunday School. Of those 
who are enrolled, half the pupils attend less than half the 
time. It needs no argument to show that the Protestant 
Churches are far from fulfilling their responsibility to 
the community as a whole. 

(b) The local Church is hampered, in its attempt to 
provide a complete program of religious education, from 
the fact that it is not directly related to the other agencies 
in the community which exercise a religious influence. 
The home, the playground, the public school, the public 
library, the public press, are all potential factors in re¬ 
ligious education, and over these the local Church has 
• 

no control. Besides these there are other agencies which 
aim more positively to exercise a religious influence and 
which may stand either as competitors or as allies of the 
local Church in its teaching work; such agencies, for 
example, as the young Men’s and Young Women’s Chris¬ 
tian Associations or the local Boy Scout executive. Over 
their activities neither the individual Church nor all the 
local Churches together have authority. Even the local 
Sunday School Association usually does not look to the 
local Churches for direction. Yet the children and youth 
of the local Church are getting something from one or 
all of these community agencies. It is by no means an 
easy problem for the local Church to determine in the 
case of each individual, or group of individuals, just what 
they are already receiving from other agencies and what it 
should itself supply. 

(c) The Church is hampered, in its attempt to provide 
a program suited to community needs, by the fact that 
existing programs are prepared outside of the community, 
by denominational or interdenominational agencies which 


202 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 


are working with the nation or the denomination in mind, 
rather than the local community and the individual in the 
local community. The result is that most of the pro¬ 
grams which are sent to the local Church are so general 
in nature, so stiff with standardization, as to be adapted 
to no particular community. They are like composite 
photographs, looking like everybody in general and no¬ 
body in particular. 

The local Sunday School Associations, although de¬ 
signed to provide for united effort among the Sunday 
Schools of a community, have generally been weak in 
community consciousness and weakly related to the 
Churches of the community. Too seldom have they been 
locally controlled, studying local conditions and adapting 
material and methods to local needs, and too often they 
have been directed from without, by State or National 
Association, and used merely as a promoting agency for 
a standardized program. The local Young People’s 
Unions have fallen into the same weakness. Their com¬ 
munity programs, instead of being the result of com¬ 
munity study and so consciously adapted to their own 
needs, have usually been taken over ready-made in some 
standardized form offered to the local union to be pro¬ 
moted through its subsidiaries, regardless of the other 
agencies operating on the same group of young people. 
The local Y.M.C.A. and, to a considerable extent, the 
Y.W.C.A. also tend to look to outside, or overhead 
officials, for direction and attempt to promote for local 
use their more or less rigidly standardized programs, 
without full regard for what the Churches are doing or 
what most needs doing in the particular city. Scouts and 
Campfire organizations lend themselves readily to use by 
the local Church but do not offer programs which are 
very easily adaptable. Excellent as they are in purpose 
and in general plan they are so specific in detail that it is 
by no means always easy to make them an integral part 
of a larger program. 


UNIFIED EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM 203 

(d) The Church is hampered, in its attempt to corre¬ 
late these programs of the various organizations and 
agencies into one closely articulated teaching program, by 
the fact that the makers of the programs, which come 
from outside sources, have not taken the trouble to get 
together and correlate their own work. If only the pro¬ 
gram-making agencies would take the necessary time in 
conference and joint planning to see just where and how 
the program of each can best be made to fit into the pro¬ 
gram of the others, and would then build together a com¬ 
mon program for the local community and the local 
Church, the problem would be tremendously simplified. 

With the existing division of responsibility there is 
bound to be neglect of certain areas and individuals, espe¬ 
cially of the most needy, and overlapping a'nd friction with 
respect to those who are naturally regarded as the most 
desirable subjects. Even those who come under the 
Church's teaching influence are bound to be imperfectly 
served, as we have seen, for the reason that no one agency, 
and no mere combination of uncoordinated agencies, is in 
a position to plan for the whole life of a pupil. The 
individual is acted upon by a number of more or less 
unrelated agencies, each planning its own independent 
program. The result is that certain areas of the pupil’s 
life are cared for—over-cared for, one may say—by 
teaching influences which do not properly supplement 
each other, not infrequently duplicating effort for both 
teacher and taught, while certain other areas are rela¬ 
tively neglected. 

We have therefore in the community as a whole a 
situation not unlike that in the local Church, only on a 
larger scale. The problem is rendered still more diffi¬ 
cult because of the fact that not only is the educational 
task divided up between uncorrelated and autonomous 
agencies, each regarding itself as responsible to an outside 
authority, but also because of the further complicating 
fact that the Churches which have to deal with these 


204 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 

agencies are wholly independent and unrelated, with no 
machinery for systematic coordination of effort. 

The Protestant Churches, as Churches, must get to¬ 
gether for community work. This, indeed, is now taking 
place in a growing number of communities through 
federations or councils of Churches. In such a council 
there should be one department concerned with the whole 
teaching task of the Churches. All the agencies for re¬ 
ligious education, including the many Churches and their 
organizations, together with the other institutions of 
religious influence outside the Churches themselves, need 
to be brought under some form of unified oversight. 

Such a department of religious education should be 
competent to deal with every phase of the teaching pro¬ 
cess, and should be able to plan a community program to 
meet community needs, based on a survey of the com¬ 
munity—the population and its varied needs and the 
resources and available agencies with which to meet those 
needs. The department of religious education should be 
competent to suggest how best the Sunday School, the 
Young People’s Societies, the Christian Associations, and 
the other local agencies may best cooperate in serving 
the entire community and all ages in a carefully corre¬ 
lated program. It should determine what portion of the 
teaching task should be accomplished through week-day 
schools of religion or vacation schools. It should outline 
a curriculum for the training of teachers and leaders of 
clubs for all these agencies, and suggest what portion 
of this training can best be given by local Churches and 
what should be provided cooperatively in a Community 
Training School. For the effective working out of such 
a plan, at least in large communities, there will doubt¬ 
less need to be a Community Director of Religious Educa¬ 
tion, and some system of supervision which shall be re¬ 
lated not only to the Sunday Schools but likewise to all 
other agencies. 

It will be no easy undertaking to work out a plan 


UNIFIED EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM 205 

which will deal comprehensively yet effectively with the 
needs of the community as a whole and, at the same time, 
leave to each Church and organization the freedom it 
may demand as an independent and autonomous body, 
but those Churches which place the welfare of the com¬ 
munity above denominational or organizational advantage 
will find that the problem is not impossible of solution. 

3. The Need for Cooperation Among the National 
Agencies 

What the local Churches and the local community can 
do in developing a unified and comprehensive educational 
program will inevitably be seriously affected by the poli¬ 
cies of the national organizations. These organizations, 
denominational, inter-denominational or non-denomina- 
tional as the case may be, exercise a profound influence 
upon the local situation because of their vigorous promo¬ 
tion of educational programs through their community 
agencies. The existence, side by side, of these many or¬ 
ganizations without any clear understanding as to the 
field to be covered by each, results in a complicated situa¬ 
tion which we must examine carefully and frankly. 

(a) The Denominational Organization of the Church's 
Teaching Work .—Most of the Protestant denominations 
have their own national societies or boards for dealing 
with educational interests and some of them have several 
distinct and independent agencies to care for particular 
phases of the educational enterprise. Most of the Sunday- 
School Boards now comprise several departments; a pub¬ 
lishing, or business department, an editorial department, 
and an educational department. Theoretically these de¬ 
partments are in close cooperative relationship; in practice, 
however, it is often difficult to secure the degree of co¬ 
operation that is ideally desirable, owing to the difference 
in the policies of the several departments. 

There is a great temptation for the publishing interests 


206 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 


to adopt commercial standards, especially when the publi¬ 
cation of books as well as of lesson material is a part of 
their task. In theory, a Sunday-School Board exists for 
service, not for profit, and the task of the publishing 
house is to provide educational material for the denomi¬ 
nation at the lowest possible cost. But, as a matter of 
fact, publishing houses have not infrequently regarded 
themselves as business corporations in competition with 
commercial publishing houses. Some denominations have 
even encouraged these organizations to adopt such a policy 
by appropriating the profits accruing from the sale of 
Sunday-School material to benevolent purposes, thus at 
one stroke discouraging the development of a better type 
of Sunday-School literature if it seemed unlikely to yield 
an immediate profit. To overcome this danger of the ex¬ 
ploitation of the Sunday-Schools by the spirit of commer¬ 
cialism, denominations should definitely locate the major 
responsibility for Sunday-School curricula and standards 
and methods in a national board of education, and should 
hold the editorial and publishing departments responsible 
for creating and circulating the requisite material prac¬ 
tically at cost. 

Not only is the division of responsibility as between 
educational, editorial, and publishing departments dis¬ 
astrous ; it is almost equally disastrous to perpetuate sepa¬ 
rate agencies in the denomination for dealing with differ¬ 
ent aspects of the teaching work of the local Church. 
All the phases of the denomination’s work in religious 
education need to be brought as speedily as possible under 
the direction of a national board of education. What 
good reason can be given for lodging the agency which 
is to promote the organization of Sunday Schools within 
a Home Missionary Society? The entire educational effi¬ 
ciency of a Sunday School may be determined by its loca¬ 
tion and by the original impetus imparted to it by the 
method of its organization. Why should there be a 
wholly separate agency for dealing with young people’s 


UNIFIED EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM 207 

work, either through Christian Endeavor Societies, 
Epworth Leagues, Young People’s Unions, or other organ¬ 
izations? Such a procedure makes difficult, if not almost 
impossible, the correlation of their programs of study and 
activities with the Sunday-School curriculum designed for 
young people of the same ages. 

So also with mission study. The insistence of Home 
and Foreign Boards, both the general and the Women’s 
Boards, that curriculum material for education in mis¬ 
sions must be entirely in the hands of their own educa¬ 
tional secretaries and that the promotion of mission- 
study classes, training schools, and plans for training in 
benevolence must also be under their own exclusive con¬ 
trol shows a singular lack of confidence between the 
missionary agencies and the regular educational agencies 
of the Church. The reasons why the situation has been 
thus are easy to understand; but it ought to be recog¬ 
nized clearly that a continuance of the policy of separate 
production and promotion means that the missionary 
material, however excellent in quality, fails to reach more 
than a comparatively small percentage of the number who 
ought to profit by its use. 

Education in missions and benevolence should be thor¬ 
oughly integrated with the rest of the educational pro¬ 
gram, not urged upon the Churches as an extra-curriculum 
feature which only the exceptionally devoted will adopt. 
The Churches must have the assistance of the missionary 
secretaries, of course, in supplying material for mission¬ 
ary education, if for no other reason than that the Mis¬ 
sion Boards are the only agencies that are in a position 
to procure the best material; but the attempt of Boards 
to control the preparation, promotion, and use of this 
material is ill-advised and shortsighted. One result of 
doing so is to keep missionary education practically di¬ 
vorced from the main educational program of the 
Church. All these specialized phases of the denomina¬ 
tion’s teaching work should be under the direction of its 


208 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 


national board of education, which, of course, should 
cooperate closely with all the agencies carrying on the 
missionary work of the Church. 

The work of the College Boards also needs to be in¬ 
tegrated, as in most denominations is not now the case, 
with the work of an inclusive board of religious education. 
Here, as well as in other fields, peculiar problems must 
of course be dealt with, and a special department of the 
general board may be necessary. But these specialized 
problems cannot be solved in the best manner except in 
the light of the whole teaching enterprise. The providing 
of college courses in religion, for example, stands in a 
certain necessary relation to entrance requirements. But 
these ought not to be fixed by college authorities or by the 
college boards of Churches acting independently; such 
requirements should be viewed also in their relation to 
the curriculum of the Church school. Or, assuming that 
the denominational college is to serve the Church as a 
training school for teachers and leaders, the courses neces¬ 
sary for their training ought not to be decided upon by 
College Boards alone; surely those who are in more im¬ 
mediate touch with the needs of Church schools have a 
contribution to make. 

Again, the religious welfare of college students as a 
community group is made all the more difficult by the 
isolation of the student group from the local Churches 
and by the attitude of indifference to student interests 
and needs on the part of many Churches in college towns. 
The solution of this problem will often require radical 
modification of policies on the part of college authorities, 
many of whom discourage the student body from mingling 
in community activities, and no less radical readjustments 
of program on the part of local Churches. For such 
readjustments the College Boards need the assistance of 
other denominational agencies which are in close touch 
with the local Churches, especially of those which have 
to do with their teaching program. 


UNIFIED EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM 209 

The organization of all the teaching activities of the 
denomination under the direction of a national board is 
one of the most urgent needs of the present moment. It 
is unreasonable and futile to expect the local Church to 
effect the unification of its teaching activities so long as 
the national denominational agencies to which it looks 
for stimulation and guidance continue separate, unrelated, 
and often competitive and even contradictory programs 
and policies. 1 Under present conditions the educational 
enterprise even tends to defeat itself, for the greater the 
demand for expansion of the teaching program the greater 
the expansion of all programs and the more intense the 
competition between them. 

(b) The Interdenominational and Non-denominational 
Organizations .—The situation in the local Church and 
community is made still more complex by the existence of 
national organizations which are either interdenomina¬ 
tional—in the sense of being created by and responsible 
to the official denominational agencies of religious educa¬ 
tion—or non-denominational and wholly independent. 
Thus in the Sunday-School field and attempting to provide 
for all age-groups, there are, in chronological order, the 
American Sunday School Union, the International Sunday 
School Association, 2 the International Sunday School Les¬ 
son Committee, the Sunday School Council 2 and the 
World’s Sunday School Association. Operative upon spe¬ 
cial age-groups, or dealing with specialized phases of re¬ 
ligious education, are the Young Men’s and Young 

1 The Protestant Episcopal Church has probably made the best 
provision on a national scale for the merging of all its teaching 
activities, Biblical instruction, catechetical instruction, worship, 
service, missionary education, elementary education, secondary 
schools, colleges, and theological seminaries, and teacher training 
in a General Board of Religious Education. The Presbyterian 
Church in the U. S. A. is now taking a similar though not as 
comprehensive step. 

* Recently merged. 



210 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 

Women’s Christian Associations, the Missionary Educa¬ 
tion Movement and other agencies of missionary educa¬ 
tion, the organizations included in the Interdenomina¬ 
tional Young People’s Commission, the Boy and Girl 
Scout organizations, and the Campfire Girls. A third 
type, devoted to the training or recruiting of leadership, 
is represented by the Council of Church Boards of Edu¬ 
cation, the Student Volunteer Movement, the Board of 
Missionary Preparation, the Conference of Theological 
Seminaries. The Religious Education Association is a 
professional organization, non-denominational and non- 
administrative, devoted primarily to research. In order 
to appreciate the effect of these many unrelated agencies 
upon the teaching work of the Church it will be necessary 
to consider each one briefly. 

A. Organizations in the Field of the Sunday 
School 

The American Sunday School Union .—The oldest ex¬ 
isting Sunday-School agency in America is primarily a 
home missionary agency, conceiving its function to be the 
organization and maintenance of undenominational, or 
“union,” Sunday Schools in communities which would 
otherwise have none. Its greatest service has been as a 
pioneer promotional agency among the newer communities 
of the West and Southwest. As such it has been instru¬ 
mental in organizing a very large number of Sunday 
Schools. It maintains a publishing plant to provide lesson 
material of an inexpensive and undenominational char¬ 
acter for its mission schools. It has an ample endowment 
which is supplemented by gifts from the Churches and 
from individuals, and from the sale of its periodicals. 

While not failing to appreciate the great and honorable 
service which has been rendered by this agency in the past, 
we have to recall that the situation in the Churches is not 
the same as it was a generation ago. Most of the denomi- 


UNIFIED EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM 211 

nations now have “Extension Departments” in their 
Sunday-School boards, whose duty it is to provide Sunday 
School facilities in needy communities. In those com¬ 
munities where denominations are already located there is 
at least the possibility of overlapping and waste and 
friction between the policies and programs of the Ameri¬ 
can Sunday School Union and those of these denomina¬ 
tions which may be operating in the same field. In those 
communities where none of the denominations are repre¬ 
sented, it may be said that they ought, either individually 
or unitedly, to be as enterprising as the American Sunday 
School Union. Furthermore, it may be accepted as a gen¬ 
eral principle that every local Sunday School should be 
related locally to some Church or group of Churches, and 
it ought to be easier to establish such relationship through 
agencies controlled by the Churches than through an 
agency over which the Churches exercise no direct control. 
It would seem in every way desirable to effect some man¬ 
ner of union between this historic agency and the extension 
department of the International Sunday School Council 
of Religious Education whereby all possible competition 
may be eliminated and increased effectiveness achieved. 

The International Sunday School Association, though 
not under the control of the churches as denominations, 
for 50 years determined the content and sequence of 
curriculum material, the organization, methods, standards, 
and type of leadership of the great majority of Sunday 
Schools in the United States and Canada. Its system of or¬ 
ganization has been most comprehensive and complete, ex¬ 
tending from the local community, up through the County, 
Provincial, or State Associations, to the National and In¬ 
ternational Convention and Executive Committee. While 
it has not attempted to publish lesson material, it has pro¬ 
vided outlines which have lent themselves to tremendously 
profitable exploitation by the publishing houses of the 
various denominations. So strong has been its hold upon 
the local community and the Sunday School in the local 


212 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 


Church that only in exceptional cases, until quite recently, 
did these show a disposition to question its methods, its 
plans or its leadership. But its strength has been also its 
greatest weakness. The prolonged advocacy of uniform 
lessons, the passion for quantity production, the over¬ 
emphasis upon evangelism to the neglect of other aspects 
of education, the production and promotion of rigid, 
standardized programs and methods, stood in the way of 
educational advance. The demand for higher standards 
led to a rapid development of denominational organization 
and vigorous assertion of denominational responsibility. 
The recent development of the Association and its merger 
with the agency representing the denominational boards 
will be described on a later page. 

The International Sunday School Lesson Committee, 
originally the creation of the International Sunday School 
Association, and formed for the purpose of providing the 
outline for Uniform Lessons, practically controlled the 
curriculum of religious education in the majority of Sun¬ 
day Schools of the Protestant evangelical denominations 
for 40 years. During that period it limited the material to 
such as could be used by all ages simultaneously. Not 
only was there no serious recognition of the differing 
capacities and needs of different ages and groups; there 
was no provision for the teaching of missions, Church 
history, or worship, except as ten or fifteen minutes were 
set aside for reading the lesson material for the day, and 
for singing and prayer at the option of the superintendent. 
There was no real place for activity as a factor in educa¬ 
tion, no plan or program of training in service and self- 
expression. Happily a new day has been dawning in the 
preparation of lesson material, even though the principle 
of graded lessons cannot yet be said to be fully established. 
It is not strange that graded lessons, which have enjoyed 
hardly a decade of trial, have not yet completely made 
their way against a system which for four times that 


UNIFIED EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM 213 

period depended upon stereotyped methods very different 
from those upon which graded instruction is based. 

The movement for graded lesson material carried with 
it also a demand for better methods of organization and 
supervision and for more expert teachers. These urgent 
needs found early recognition in the denominational 
Sunday-School Boards and soon occasioned the organiza¬ 
tion of new ‘educational departments,” which set them¬ 
selves to the task of formulating Sunday-School aims and 
standards, outlining courses for teacher-training, organiz¬ 
ing training classes and institutes and summer schools. 
Under the stimulus of this new activity within the de¬ 
nominations, the International Association also soon under¬ 
took to promote similar undertakings within the local and 
State associations, with the result that the two types of 
leadership soon found themselves in serious competition 
with frequent occasions for friction. At this juncture the 
denominational boards united to form the Sunday School 
Council of Evangelical Denominations, with four depart¬ 
ments, or sections: the Editorial, the Educational, the Ex¬ 
tension (which two were later united into one), and the 
Publishers’. The Council soon asserted as its prerogative 
the right of fixing standards, providing training courses, 
granting credit, and determining methods, leaving to the 
International Association the task of promoting organiza¬ 
tion, methods, and standards as determined by the de¬ 
nominational boards. 

It was inevitable that some closer relationship should be 
established between these three great national agencies 
with interdenominational functions. It was a cause for 
no little satisfaction when adjustments were made 
whereby the International Lesson Committee became a 
joint creation of the International Association, the Sunday 
School Council and the denominations acting directly 
through the Sunday-School Boards. The effect was ap¬ 
parent in the new policies adopted by the International 
Lesson Committee, whereby it has now been determined 


214 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 

to abandon, as soon as possible, the issuance of outlines 
for uniform lessons, replacing these with lessons graded 
for successive age-groups. The yearly graded lessons are 
still to be maintained and in addition the Committee is to 
undertake the preparation of a complete curriculum, in 
which will be indicated appropriate and correlated activi¬ 
ties for expression and training and correlated devotional 
or worship material. So far as the Sunday School is con¬ 
cerned, the program-making agencies are now unified. 

It is a further cause for great satisfaction that adjust¬ 
ments have been made whereby the Sunday School Coun¬ 
cil and the International Sunday School Association have 
completed a process of unification through their merger 
in the new body known as the International Sunday 
School Council of Religious Education . The plan of re¬ 
organization preserves, it is believed, the desirable features 
of both these organizations, bringing together into one 
body, under its several departments, editors, publishers, 
extension and educational promoters. In the new organ¬ 
ization there is recognition of a two-fold relationship and 
responsibility, to the denominational boards as their official 
agent of cooperation, and to the community organizations 
made up of local Sunday Schools. The International Sun¬ 
day School Lesson Committee is now an organic part of 
the International Sunday School Council. 

The World's Sunday School Association was originally 
formed as the counterpart of the International Sunday 
School Association for the promotion of Sunday-school 
work throughout the rest of the world. While the uni¬ 
form lesson system was dominant the methods of organi¬ 
zation and promotion in both bodies were similar. With 
the rise of the Sunday School Council, however, and the 
awakening of a sense of denominational responsibility to 
serve the children of foreign lands, and with the confu¬ 
sion occasioned in mission fields by the discontinuance of 
cooperation between the British and American sections 
of the Lesson Committee and consequent competition 


UNIFIED EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM 215 

between two sets of uniform lessons, some readjustments 
in the method of organization of the World’s Sunday 
School Association were found to be necessary. At pres¬ 
ent it is under the management of a Board of Directors 
made up of representatives both of the denominational 
Mission Boards and of the Sunday School Boards. 

The adjustments already made among these various 
agencies represent an important stage in the process of 
development, not the final outcome. There is widespread 
demand for a more comprehensive program for the teach¬ 
ing work of the Church. The Sunday-School agencies 
have to remember that it does not lie within their province 
to plan the whole program of the Church’s teaching work. 
Powerful as they are, they cannot exercise control over 
other teaching agencies which are also recognized by the 
Churches as their own creation; nor over other interde¬ 
nominational or undenominational agencies, which, 
though not controlled by the Churches directly, still 
operate effectively upon certain special groups of chil¬ 
dren or young people. 

In other words, the movement toward coordination of 
organizations and correlation of programs must go still 
further. Before we can hope to have a situation that is 
at all ideal, all the agencies which have to do with the 
outlining of curricula, the preparation of lesson material, 
the suggesting of activities of service or worship, the 
development of a missionary spirit, the training in 
benevolence, the promotion of methods of teaching, the 
organization of schools—Sunday Schools, week-day 
schools, community schools, institutes, summer schools— 
the determining of aims and standards, the development 
of plans for supervision, the serving of special groups, 
must be brought into a close and vital unity—a unity 
that is not dominated by any one educational agency 
but rests on thorough understanding and mutual appre¬ 
ciation. Just as the teaching agencies of single denomi¬ 
nations need to he united under one Board of Education, 


216 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 


so the teaching agencies of the Churches acting coopera¬ 
tively need to be brought together into an Educational 
Council of the Churches, in which all the varied educa¬ 
tional functions shall receive due recognition. 

Moreover, the curriculum-making agencies, at least, 
need to be located in close physical proximity. For ex¬ 
ample, the International Sunday School Lesson Commit¬ 
tee, the Missionary Education Movement, the Program 
Committee of the Young People’s Commission, the text¬ 
book and lesson-making agencies of the Christian Asso¬ 
ciations, and possibly others, should all be located in the 
same building, or at least have convenient and systematic 
provision for constant conference. 

B. Organizations Doing a Specialized Work 

The Missionary Education Movement, now under the 
general guidance of the educational departments of the 
denominational mission boards, has done much to bring 
the Churches to a realization of the place of missionary 
education in the teaching program and to provide stimu¬ 
lating information regarding the missionary enterprise. 
On the whole, it has conceived of the missionary enterprise 
broadly, assuming that the Church is interested in all that 
pertains to the social as well as the individual welfare of 
all men everywhere. It has also conceived of the educa¬ 
tional enterprise in similar fashion and its summer con¬ 
ferences for the training of teachers and leaders have 
been characterized by a high degree of educational insight. 
The Movement has made a distinct contribution to the 
new educational movement not only through its text-books 
but through its utilization of the dramatic method, through 
pageantry, hymns, prayers, and programs of activity and 
benevolence. 

The movement for efficient missionary education has 
been seriously hampered by the division of the missionary 
forces themselves into Foreign Boards and Home Boards, 


UNIFIED EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM 


217 


and these, again, into agencies which represent the work of 
the Church as a whole and agencies representing the work 
of women. The important work of the women’s boards 
has found separate centers in the Council of Women for 
Home Missions and the Central Committee on the United 
Study of Foreign Missions. 

While these divisions of the missionary enterprise are 
wholly artificial and of value for administrative con¬ 
venience only, it has nevertheless been found necessary 
to recognize each of these agencies in the pro¬ 
gram of publication, the usual method having been to 
publish each year a series of books representing each of 
these aspects of the missionary undertaking. 3 In the pro¬ 
motion of mission study classes, moreover, even within 
the same denomination, there is not infrequently found 
a curious spirit of competition between home and foreign 
missionary agencies, or between the general boards and 
the women’s boards. It has been customary for each 
agency to promote its own type of study among the 
Churches more or less independently. 

An even more serious difficulty has been the separation 
of the program of missionary education from the general 
teaching program of the Church as operative in the Sun¬ 
day School. The result is that both phases of education 
are one-sided, or else overlapping and duplicating. Either 
the Sunday-School lessons develop interest and motive but 
fail to provide a program of expressional activity, while 
the mission study classes emphasize participation in mis¬ 
sionary enterprises before the missionary motive has been 
sufficiently developed; or else each must attempt to pro¬ 
vide both programs, distinct and separate from each other. 

■The Council of Women for Home Missions and the Mis¬ 
sionary Education Movement now cooperate in the production 
of a single program of publication for education in home missions. 
The Missionary Education Movement and the Central Committee 
on the United Study of Foreign Missions also join in the publica¬ 
tion of certain books. 



218 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 




As a matter of fact, missionary education has, relatively, 
suffered neglect, notwithstanding the tremendous expendi¬ 
ture of effort in the preparation of text-books and the 
promotion of classes. 4 

Two contrasted ideals of missionary education con¬ 
tribute to the continued separation. According to one, 
missionary education is a phase of propaganda for the 
purpose of securing the resources needed for carrying on 
the missionary enterprise. The impulse toward missionary 
education undoubtedly took its origin in the fact that ad¬ 
ministrative officers began to realize that such a program 
was necessary to the maintenance of the missionary enter¬ 
prise. According to the other ideal, the development and 
expression of the missionary motive is an integral part of 
all religious education, without which the Church’s teach¬ 
ing work cannot be Christian in the truest sense. Doubt¬ 
less all would agree that the second of these statements is 
the correct conception, but as it works out in practice 
missionary boards have sometimes been slow to admit 
that they are responsible for any aspects of missionary 
education which do not seem likely to yield imme¬ 
diate results in increased contributions or in additions to 
the number of recruits, while at the same time they have 
been loath to relinquish control of missionary education 
and to provide for its incorporation in the Church’s larger 
teaching program lest the missionary note should not re¬ 
ceive the proper emphasis. The time should soon come 
when the teaching and program-making agencies of the 
mission boards will participate in a larger Educational 
Council of the Churches, making their contribution to a 
rounded program at each stage of its development and 
gladly making such adjustments in the prevailing methods 
of missionary education as are clearly shown to be wise. 

The Interdenominational Young People's Commission, 
formed but a few years ago, is composed of representa- 


4 Cf. pp. I55-IS7- 



UNIFIED EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM 


219 


tives of denominationally controlled young people’s 
agencies, such as the Epworth League and the Baptist 
Young People’s Union, and also representatives of de¬ 
nominational boards or committees having in charge young 
people’s work, and in addition representatives of the 
Young People’s Society of Christian Endeavor, which is 
not under denominational control. As has been already 
pointed out, there are often serious conditions of over¬ 
lapping, competition, and friction in the local community 
and the local Church between the Young People’s socie¬ 
ties, the organized classes of the Sunday School, and the 
classes for missionary education, all largely recruited from 
the same age-group. 5 The local Church is, however, 
almost powerless to bring these agencies into real co¬ 
operation and unity so long as the State and National 
organizations of these respective bodies maintain their 
wholly separate existence. Clearly, there is great need 
that this national organization should also find a place in 
an Educational Council of the Churches, and coordinate 
its program with the larger teaching program of the 
Churches. 

The work of the Y.M.C.A. and the Y.W.C.A., while 
generally regarded both by them and by the community 
at large as being a form of interdenominational activity 
and supported by “Church people,” is for the most part 
carried on in other buildings apart from Church property 
and is under the direction of an administrative force over 
which the Churches, as such, have no control. Moreover, 
the young people who attend the clubs and classes of the 
Christian Associations, whether connected with Churches 
or not, usually attend not as members of Churches or of 
Sunday Schools, but as members of the Association; thus 
the benefits they receive are not usually associated in their 
minds with the institution which inspired its leadership 
and whose members provide the resources for its mainte- 


8 Cf. pp. 149-155. 



220 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 


nance. At the same time both of the Associations are 
highly specialized agencies of religious education, with 
carefully adapted programs of instruction and expression 
based upon long and intimate study of the needs of the 
various age-groups and social-groups which make up the 
local constituency . 6 

It would be more than gratuitous to criticize these or¬ 
ganizations for doing, on the whole, very effectively a work 
which the local Churches, acting individually, could hardly 
hope to accomplish. Nor is it by any means certain that 
the Church organizations, as at present constituted, could, 
of their own initiative, provide for such cooperative work 
a direction that would be as enterprising and vigorous as 
the Associations seem to be able to secure from the com¬ 
munity at large. Many of the Association leaders them¬ 
selves, however, agree that it is very desirable that the 
teaching work of the Associations should be brought into 
much closer relation to the teaching work of the Churches. 
If the Churches are to depend upon the Associations for 
providing opportunities for club work, recreation, and ex- 
pressional activity, then the teachers of classes in the 
Churches and the leaders of boys’ and girls’ activities 
should together formulate a common program. And this 
cooperative work in the local community will be greatly 
facilitated if the national organizations of the Y.M.C.A. 
and Y.W.C.A. can be so related to an Educational Council 
of the Churches that the educational leaders of the de¬ 
nominations and the corresponding officials in the Asso¬ 
ciations can not only be cognizant of each other’s plans 
but cooperate in building a common program for boys and 
girls and young people. 

Scout and Campfire Organizations are still further re¬ 
moved from the immediate field of the Church’s teaching 
activity, so far as their control is concerned, being wholly 
independent of the Churches and not restricted to use by 


fl Cf. pp. 168-170. 



UNIFIED EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM 


221 


avowedly religious agencies. On the other hand, they 
come even closer to the life of the Churches, in that they 
meet in Church buildings and become a part of the 
Church’s teaching program when organized under Church 
auspices. Their programs, however, do not become an 
integral part of the Church’s program, save as they are 
embodied by the Church in its general scheme. There is 
no provision at present, though there might well be, for 
actually correlating the teaching of the Church with Scout 
or Campfire activities. Such correlation might be worked 
out so that these activities would become a vital part of 
the Church’s program if representatives of these organiza¬ 
tions at their national headquarters were to sit as con¬ 
sultative members of the Educational Council of the 
Churches, the need for which we now see at every turn. 

C. Organizations for the Training and Recruiting 
of Leadership 

The Council of Church Boards of Education , composed 
of the official representatives of the denominational 
Boards which are responsible for the work of the de¬ 
nominational schools and colleges and religious work at 
State Universities , 7 at first thought may seem to be quite 
apart from the teaching work of the Church in the ordi¬ 
nary parish. But, as has been already pointed out, the 
work of the Church Boards of Education needs the co¬ 
operation both of the Sunday School Boards and the local 
Churches in college communities. Requirements for 
college entrance in such subjects as Bible study must take 
account of the Churches’ general program of Bible study; 
courses of study for college students may well be provided, 
in part at least, by local Churches, whose programs must be 
adjusted for this purpose; college courses in Bible, in 
psychology, in education, and in history, designed to aid 

T The teaching work of the Church in college and university 
is discussed in subsequent chapters. 



222 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 


in the development of leadership for the Churches’ teach¬ 
ing work, need to be constructed in full knowledge of the 
demands to be made upon such leadership. It is important, 
therefore, that the Council of Church Boards and the 
agencies having to do with religious education in the 
local parish be related to each other in a general Educa¬ 
tional Council of the Churches in much the same way 
that the College Board of a single denomination needs to 
be related to its Board of Religious Education. 

Among the agencies carrying on religious work on the 
campus there are serious problems of relationship to be 
considered . 8 The religious education of college students 
has been largely delegated in many institutions to volun¬ 
tary student organizations which are under the lead¬ 
ership of the Student Department of the Young Men’s 
and Young Women’s Christian Associations. These or¬ 
ganizations have prepared a great variety of courses of 
Bible study and mission study designed especially for 
student groups. It is now coming to be recognized that, 
however well these courses may be adapted to meet the 
special needs of college students, the manner of their pro¬ 
motion often makes it difficult to attach the student closely 
to the local Church. It is urgently necessary for the 
Council of Church Boards, which is under the control of 
the Churches, and the Christian Associations, which are 
autonomous, to plan together the construction and pro¬ 
motion of a common program and the development of the 
fullest student loyalty to the Church and its enterprises, 
without making it necessary for students to choose be¬ 
tween this larger loyalty and the more immediate but 
lesser loyalties. 

There are several other organizations, national in scope, 
of an undenominational character, which are concerned 
with more specialized phases of recruiting or training for 
religious leadership. Of these, the Student Volunteer 

8 This subject will be more fully considered in the two follow¬ 
ing chapters. 



UNIFIED EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM 


223 

Movement and the Committee on Missionary Preparation 
are particularly concerned with the enlistment and pro¬ 
fessional training of those who are to devote their lives 
to missionary service. The Conference of Theological 
Seminaries, the Association of Biblical Instructors in Col¬ 
leges and Universities, and the Conference of Church 
Workers in Universities represent important aspects of 
specialized work which have a very immediate bearing 
upon the teaching work which the Churches carry on at 
home. In any comprehensive Educational Council of the 
Churches these organizations which are interested in the 
training of leaders should find representation, in order 
that they may be brought into the closest possible contact 
with the work for which they are training the leaders. 

D. Organizations for Study and Research 

Probably the Religious Education Association has 
done more than any other single influence to awaken the 
Churches to a sense of their responsibility for providing 
more efficient teaching in religion and to stimulate all agen¬ 
cies to adopt larger aims, higher standards, and better 
methods. It includes within its scope the whole field of re¬ 
ligion on the one hand, and of education on the other. This 
fact alone has been tremendously fruitful in expanding the 
popular conception of religious education. But a few 
years ago nearly every Christian educator was inclined to 
think of his own field as the only one in which religious 
teaching had attained a respectable standing; the work of 
the Sunday School, or of the Y.M.C.A., or of the mission 
study class, was hardly deserving of notice. Today there 
are many more who are able to speak intelligently and ap¬ 
preciatively of the work of all agencies. This change has 
come about very largely because the representatives of 
these various agencies and aspects of religious education 
have learned to know and to respect each other in the 
conventions and interim work of the Religious Education 


224 THE teaching work of the church 

Association. In addition to affording a meeting ground 
for all types of teachers, and a place of conference and 
investigation, this organization is unique in that it is open 
to Roman Catholic and Jew, as well as Protestant. This, 
of itself, is important. It insures that problems of relig¬ 
ious education shall be presented, studied, and discussed 
in an atmosphere free from bigotry and prejudice. 

In any Educational Council of the (Protestant) 
Churches, the Religious Education Association ought to 
have representation at least as an advisory body so that 
its facilities for research and for wider discussion may be 
more fully utilized by the Churches. If some way could 
be found for bringing the office of the Religious Education 
Association and the central offices of the needed Edu¬ 
cational Council of the Churches into close physical 
proximity, without impairing in any way the freedom of 
the Association to shape its own policies and to cultivate 
its relationships with other religious and educational 
bodies, it would be a most advantageous arrangement. 

The relation of such a Council of Educational Agencies 
to the Churches themselves would need to be considered. 
It might be an organization wholly separate or it might be 
related in some informal way to the Federal Council of the 
Churches, made up of official representatives of most of 
the Protestant denominations. In support of the latter 
alternative it may well be urged both that the closest re¬ 
lation possible with the Churches as a whole is to be 
desired and that the Federal Council is itself coming to 
be an important research and educational agency for deal¬ 
ing especially with the great task of Christianizing public 
opinion on social and international questions . 9 

In any case, an urgent need, however it may be met, 
is correlation. There is a great wealth of organizations, 
dealing with various phases of the Church’s teaching 

9 Cf. Chap. VI, where we have discussed the work of the 
Federal Council in social research and education. 



UNIFIED EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM 


225 

work. Each of them covers a vital part of the field. 
None of them covers it all. Under the existing disjointed 
arrangement each makes its program in ignorance of, or 
indifference to, what is being planned by other agencies. 
What is insistently called for is some unifying agency— 
a central council—in which each organization will have 
its proper place, in which none will be expected to give 
up its essential contribution, but in which all will meet 
regularly and sympathetically around a common table, in 
order to approach the educational task as a whole and to 
formulate policies which will help the agencies in the 
local community to develop what can be truly called a 
community system of religious education. 

At a conference of about sixty representatives of the 
various educational agencies, meeting at Garden City, 
L. I., in May, 1921, under the auspices of the Federal 
Council of the Churches, the situation was faced and it 
was unanimously agreed that the time had come to move 
in this direction. This conference summarized the situa¬ 
tion as follows: 

“We register the conviction that some more inclusive 
coordination is essential to the complete fulfilment of our 
whole educational task. We feel an imperative need for 
some continuous provision for conference on the part of 
all the agencies carrying on the many-sided work of Chris¬ 
tian education. Such problems as those which we have 
considered in this Conference are not the concern of one 
agency alone, or even of a group of agencies covering less 
than the whole field; they can be solved adequately only 
as the various agencies make their plans in full knowledge 
and understanding of what is being planned by others. 
To awaken the public conscience to the need for Christian 
education; to secure a system of Christian education that 
shall include the whole community; to reach the groups 
outside the Churches now untouched by any of our 
agencies; to relate the work of the Sunday School, of the 
agencies for missionary education, of the Young People’s 
Societies, of the Young Men’s and Young Women’s 
Christian Associations, of the Boy Scouts and other or- 


226 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 


ganizations in the local community more closely to one 
another; to adjust the Church’s educational work to that 
of the public school; to study religious education scien¬ 
tifically and to make the best use of modern research in 
general education; to organize more effectively the re¬ 
ligious influences in the institutions of higher learning 
that are not supported by the churches; to correlate the 
Church’s agencies for religious education in the parish 
with her agencies for religious education in her schools 
and colleges—these and other problems all demand the 
united consideration of all the agents of Christian educa¬ 
tion if the most effective program is to be achieved.” 

At a subsequent conference held at Forest Hills, L. I., 
May 2-4, 1923, attended by a larger and more representa¬ 
tive group of leaders in all the various educational agencies 
that we have considered in this chapter, a further step was 
taken, which, it is hoped, will result in the establishment 
of a simple and informal “council on correlation,” bringing 
together for frequent conference and common planning 
official representatives of all the bodies that prepare 
curricula of religious education. 

The findings of this remarkable conference, dealing with 
the principles in accordance with which programs of relig¬ 
ious education should be prepared and correlated and 
promoted, are as follows: 

“1. The child in the local group is the basis of correla¬ 
tion of program material. 

“2. Local initiative and experimentation in program 
making are to be encouraged and stimulated, even in the 
less resourceful communities, rather than the adoption of 
prescribed programs of activities. 

“3. In order to make available a variety of source ma¬ 
terial in a form usable by local communities, and in order 
to give them stimulus, help, and guidance, typical pro¬ 
grams should be developed nationally. Such programs 
should grow out of local experimentation, and every 
effort should be made to prevent them from becoming 
fixed and static. 


UNIFIED EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM 227 

“4. National organizations have important functions to 
perform in encouraging experimentation, comparing the 
results from various communities, serving as a clearing¬ 
house for successful methods, developing and training 
leaders, and especially in sensing problems or plans that 
might be typical of any large grouping in American or 
world society, so that there may be the outlook of the 
larger groupings as well as of the local community. 

“ 5 - In view of the larger value which comes from the 
development of plans locally, and in view of the fact that 
no one type of program can meet the needs of every com¬ 
munity or group, programs should be presented by the 
national organizations in such form as will make possible 
individual selection and adaptation and stimulate initiative 
and resourcefulness. Community groups should work out 
plans locally, using national programs as source material 
in meeting different kinds of situations. 

“6. As an immediate step in facilitating this procedure, 
the common as well as the distinctive material of the dif¬ 
ferent programs now existing should be codified and cross- 
referenced so as to make it more available for use in the 
development of self-directed activities. 

“7. We note with appreciation the fact that the Com¬ 
mittee on International Curriculum of the International 
Lesson Committee plans to have integrally related to its 
work on a Church School Curriculum all the elements in¬ 
volved in the entire program of religious education. 

“8. We recommend that each of the general agencies 
concerned in religious education be asked to name two rep¬ 
resentatives to a Council on Correlation, which would 
serve as a clearing-house of problems and plans of mutual 
concern. We recommend that this Council be convened at 
an early date by the Committee which called this Confer¬ 
ence. 

“While this Council will form its own organization and 
determine its own functions, we recommend 


228 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 


“(a) That it give attention to the codifying and cross- 
referencing of present program material; 

“(b) That it consider the possibility of further coopera¬ 
tion on the part of all agencies concerned in the prepara¬ 
tion of program material.” 


PART III 

THE CHURCH TRAINING FOR 
CHRISTIAN LEADERSHIP 


I 






CHAPTER X 

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION IN THE COLLEGE 

While the control of elementary and secondary edu¬ 
cation has almost entirely passed into the hands of the 
State, in higher education the Church still has large num¬ 
bers of institutions that are directly under its influence. 
Colleges and universities and professional schools sup¬ 
ported by the State have rapidly increased but the insti¬ 
tutions which are supported by the Church, or which are 
more or less definitely associated with it, continue to play 
an important part in higher education. How is the Church 
dealing with the task of religious training in its own 
institutions ? 

It is not too much to say that the Church in America 
has no adequate system of religious education for col¬ 
lege or university students. There are individuals and 
institutions here and there that are eagerly engaged in 
pioneer work, but, for the present, we must speak of 
religious education for college students as chiefly in the 
making. Very few have visualized the total task of re¬ 
ligious education in the college or seriously attempted its 
accomplishment. The number of persons, however, 
who are concerned that this phase of our educational 
work be developed in a manner worthy of its importance 
is now rapidly multiplying. They recognize the suicidal 
neglect of the Church in this particular. There has been 
much discussion in recent years of the necessity of pre¬ 
serving this crowning phase of education, which, in ways 
that cannot be duplicated in this age, once characterized 

American higher education. 

231 


232 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 


i. The College Background Favorable to Religious 
Training 

There are certain latent materials in the field of higher 
education which, when exposed to view, are recognized 
as being of great value and affording the presuppositions 
of a high achievement in religious education. These ma¬ 
terials lie close to the foundations of our colleges and 
have often been covered up by the more recent accumula¬ 
tions. To recognize them is of first importance. 

(a) The first of these encouraging facts is that 
higher education in the United States sprang largely from 
the religious impulse. 

More than five hundred American universities and col¬ 
leges could be named which were founded in response to 
the religio-educational impulse and recognize some kind of 
affiliation with the churches. These relationships are of 
many types and vary from the independent institution 
whose Church associations are historical only, to the in¬ 
stitution whose trustees are appointed and whose property 
is owned by the Church. Most of the institutions fall in 
classes of affiliation between these extremes. 1 Nearly all 
of the Colonial colleges were primarily institutions of re¬ 
ligious education under Church direction. Not only so, 
but they were interested specifically in one phase of 
religious education, the training of men for the Christian 
ministry. President Thomas Clap of Yale, in a pamphlet 

J The Protestant institutions that recognize Church relation¬ 
ships other than historical are: Baptist Northern, 29; Baptist 
Southern, 45; Brethren, 8; Christian, 7; Congregational, 24; 
Disciples, 19; Friends, 10; Lutheran, 35; Methodist Episcopal, 
44; Methodist Episcopal South, 58; Presbyterian U. S., 29; Pres¬ 
byterian U. S. A., 52; Reformed U. S., 7; United Brethren, 7; 
United Presbyterian, 5; others, 37. Total, 416. There are sev¬ 
eral other institutions which call themselves “Independent,” most 
of which were founded under Church influences. There are 92 
tax-supported colleges and universities. These numbers vary 
slightly, of course, from year to year. 



RELIGIOUS EDUCATION IN THE COLLEGE 233 

published in 1754, declared that "Colleges are Societies of 
Ministers, for training up Persons for the work of the 
Ministry”; and he added, speaking of Yale College, "The 
great design of founding this School was to Educate Min¬ 
isters in our own Way.” 2 With such a "Mother of 
Colleges as Y ale and others like her, even though in 
later years the conception of the primary task of the 
college has been greatly modified, it would have been 
strange if succeeding institutions had not felt strongly the 
religious impulse. 

In the founding of many of the tax-supported institu¬ 
tions also (which we are to consider in the following 
chapter) representatives of the Churches took a prominent 
and sometimes a determining part, and even today some 
of the leading State universities are presided over by min¬ 
isters of the Gospel. In many cases the State university 
presidents are recognized leaders within the Churches of 
their choice. Most of these presidents have been and still 
are graduates of colleges founded by the Churches. There 
is, therefore, a general presumption in the historic and 
administrative relationship even of our tax-supported in¬ 
stitutions of higher learning in favor of a system of 
religious education. Such a system is coming more and 
more to be demanded by the constituencies of a majority 
of all types of institutions. If properly organized and 
maintained, it can contribute to the development of the 
religious life of the nation and to the welfare of the 
Churches without being under unwholesome ecclesiastical 
domination. Such a system need be in no sense subversive 
of the well-recognized principle of the separation of 
Church and State. It is entirely in accord with the genius 
of American education, which recognizes religion, morality, 
and knowledge as necessary to good government and the 
happiness of mankind. 

It is unnecessary to tarry long upon the causes of the 

•Quoted by Chancellor E. E. Brown in “The Origin of Ameri¬ 
can State Universities.” 



234 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 

decisive departure of American higher education from the 
motives which at first impelled it. Some of those causes 
have been pointed out in the first chapter under the gen¬ 
eral discussion of the secularization of American education. 
Much of what is said there concerning the development of 
the lower schools in separation from religion applies to the 
institutions of higher learning also. There are two funda¬ 
mental facts which should be kept in mind in an attempt 
to understand this development in our colleges and 
universities. 

The first fact is the social and economic transformations 
which have occurred in this country since Colonial days. 
The amassing of wealth, the development of industry, the 
influx of unassimilated foreigners—all of these processes 
being accentuated and complicated by the applications of 
science and invention—produced a social and economic 
situation strangely different from that in which most of 
our earlier colleges were founded and made far more 
complex and extensive demands upon our educational 
institutions. 

The other fact was the inability or failure of the 
Churches generally to maintain aggressively the educa¬ 
tional point of view. In many cases they antagonized the 
incipient sciences and registered protests against the free¬ 
dom of inquiry for which the sciences stood. In the heat 
of debate, of course, the scientific temper was not always 
scientific. For whatever reasons, the Churches did not 
provide enough prophetic or educational talent to interpret 
to their constituencies the relation of the rapidly changing 
world to the verities of religion. Many Churches became 
paralyzed as to their educational arm. In these Churches 
education, technically defined, largely ceased to function. 
The colleges tended toward the freedom of the scientific 
spirit. The control by the Churches was lost or weakened. 
When some of the Churches awoke to the changed situ¬ 
ation they discovered that their educational work, to use 
the words of a well-known bishop, was “without form 


I 


RELIGIOUS EDUCATION IN THE COLLEGE 235 

and void, and darkness was upon the whole face of it.” 
The present rising tide of interest in education in the 
Church and the spirit of cooperation with educational 
leaders, 3 as well as the less dogmatic attitude both of 
science and religion, mark the dawning of a new day 
in educational work under church auspices. 

(b) In most of our institutions the large majority of 
the faculty are members or adherents of the Protestant 
Churches. 

This statement applies generally to all types of institu¬ 
tions : denominational, independent, tax-supported. In the 
denominational colleges the faculty members are usually 
chosen with reference to their favorable attitude toward 
religion, as well as with reference to their scholarship and 
personality. The administration deliberately provides for 
the powerful pedagogy of example. These faculty mem¬ 
bers identify themselves more or less actively with the 
Church of their choice, often they are officials or active 
workers in the Church. Their lives are not bisected into 
an educational part and a religious part; their lives as a 
whole are under the observation of the students. In vary¬ 
ing degrees of effectiveness, they are professors at one 
and the same time of education and religion. No one 
thinks of its being necessary to discriminate between the 


(c) The vast majority of the students in American 
colleges and universities claim membership in, or affiliation 
with, the Churches. 

The preponderance on the campuses of students of 
Protestant Church connections is very striking. Not only 

* A notable illustration of the development of this closer rela¬ 
tionship is found in the recently organized Congregational Foun¬ 
dation for Education, whose Directors are chosen by the National 
Council of the Congregational Churches. Other illustrations are 
afforded in the recent educational “forward movements” of sev¬ 
eral of the denominations. 



236 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 

in the denominational colleges is the proportion of Church 
adherents very high, frequently reaching well over 95 per 
cent, of the students enrolled, but in many of the State 
and independent universities, where information of this 
kind is secured from year to year, the figures are scarcely 
less remarkable. Individual State institutions report as 
high as 96 per cent, of their students as claiming a Church 
affiliation. It is no unusual thing for a State university to 
report 70 per cent, or 80 per cent, of the students as 
Church adherents. 4 Statistics have been secured in several 
States which show that while the Protestant population of 
the State is as low as 37 per cent, of the total population, 
no less than 75 per cent, of the college and university 
students come from this part of the population. It is from 
the homes of Church members, very largely, that students 
go to college. To say the least, the great mass of the 
college students of America are pre-disposed toward re¬ 
ligion and the Church as its official symbol. 

(d) The structure and organisation of most college 
communities is favorable to religious education. 

The college community is made up of selected members. 
The students are usually admitted on the basis of character 
as well as intellectual attainments. They are at the period 
of youthful aspiration and hope, the stuff that religion 
builds on. They are generally seeking the means of life, 
not immediately the means of a living. They are in the 
epochal process of orientation. They are searching for 
guiding life principles. There is the same essential ideal¬ 
ism and altruism also among the teachers. These men 
and women have spent years in preparation for a life- 
work whose attitude is that of giving rather than receiv¬ 
ing, of ministering rather than being ministered unto. It 
is not quite modern to say with the former president of 
Yale that a college is a “Society of Ministers,” but the 

4 It is impossible to discriminate accurately in these reports 
between Church membership and Church preference. 



RELIGIOUS EDUCATION IN THE COLLEGE 237 

great teachers of a college, by virtue of their qualities and 
their dominant purpose, are God’s men and women, inspir¬ 
ing students to join them in the search for the true, the 
beautiful, and the good. In the words of President Had¬ 
ley, “Teaching is not instruction but revelation—prophet 
and interpreter and pioneer do much more than record 
their experiences; they enlighten the world by their ex¬ 
ample.” The ordinary college is not sordid, it is not 
commercialized, it is not materialistic. Many college com¬ 
munities are centers of spiritual life. In many denomina¬ 
tional colleges, and in some of the State institutions, the 
currents of wholesome spiritual life are quite as strong as 
in the best Church congregations. 

The religious influences which are operative in at least 
some of the best Church colleges it may be worth while 
briefly to summarize. At the morning meal in the common 
dining-room there is still, in several of the smaller col¬ 
leges, a brief Bible reading and prayer, taking the place 
of the family devotions to which, it must be confessed, 
most children of Church members are strangers in the 
home. There is very commonly a daily chapel service 
which faculty and students attend, conducted in a devo¬ 
tional spirit, with Bible reading and prayer and usually a 
short talk on some topic of religious, ethical, social, or 
international import. This successive commitment of the 
several members of the faculty, who take turns in leading 
the chapel services, to the essentials of religion would be 
striking if it were not taken for granted by the college 
community. The college has the habit of worshiping to¬ 
gether, of thinking together the same thoughts, often of 
committing itself to ideals and programs of the highest 
significance. A powerful and wholesome unity is de¬ 
veloped. The best loyalties—such loyalties as “stand at 
the very heart of morality and religion”—are developed to 
the institutions of organized society, the home, the college, 
the Church, the State. In not a few colleges there are 
two or three prayer meetings during the week, attended 


238 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 

and participated in by groups of students and some faculty 
member. There is a Student Volunteer Band and 
numerous Bible study and mission study classes, as well as 
discussion groups and courses in fundamentals participated 
in by students and faculty. 5 Each Sunday the students in 
general attend Church, either in a separate college service 
or in the local Churches, and many of them lead or par¬ 
ticipate in some form of Sunday School or other “deputa¬ 
tion” work. Not infrequently there is a “Quiet Hour” in 
connection with one or more dormitories when students, 
by common consent and the force of college tradition, at 
least remain in their rooms and become somewhat 
acquainted with themselves. Some form of evangelistic 
appeal and of appeal for Christian life work is made to 
the students. Often there is a college pastor who devotes 
his entire time to pastoral work among the members of 
the college. Usually there is a Department of Biblical 
Literature in which regular instruction in religion is 
given. In an increasing number of colleges the Depart¬ 
ment of Biblical Literature is being succeeded by a De¬ 
partment of Religious Education, with fair equipment and 
personnel, and sometimes with sufficient prestige to draw 
most of the students for a part of their college course. 

It may be that the influences of religious education of 
most far-reaching import in these colleges are to be found 
in the class rooms of the faculty taken as a whole. All of 
the students are studying English and American litera¬ 
ture. Much of this literature has both the form and 
substance of the best religious, ethical, and social teaching, 
and the expert Christian teacher in this department has 
at hand dynamic subject-matter for religious education 
which some have learned to use in skilful fashion. Prac¬ 
tically all of the students are studying also ancient and 
modern history and the related subjects of economics, 
sociology, and political science. These subjects are con- 

'The work of the voluntary student organizations is discussed 
more fully in the following chapter. 



RELIGIOUS EDUCATION IN THE COLLEGE 239 

stantly offering occasions for Christian interpretation. 6 
The claim is not made that a Christian science of eco¬ 
nomics, sociology, and political science has been elab¬ 
orated ; only that genuinely Christian men can in these de¬ 
partments interpret the faith that rules their lives. Some 
colleges have professors of philosophy who give religion its 
rightful place in the system of universal thought. Courses 
in international relations are beginning to be introduced 
and studied from the standpoint of Christian idealism. The 
presence of foreign students in large numbers, often 
coming from the mission schools of their home countries, 
accentuates this idealistic attitude and interpretation. 

In many of these institutions there are professors with 
rare talents for dealing with the problems of young people 
to whom the students naturally gravitate and whom they 
make Father Confessor of a Protestant sort. In these 
intimate relationships some of the most far-reaching de¬ 
cisions are made affecting both the spiritual life and the 
life sendee of the students. This type of educational 
influence is not formal but it approximates very closely 
indeed the favorite method of the Great Teacher. In 
a less effectual way, because more official and formal and 
sometimes with the covert threat of legalistic penalty, the 
faculty and student advisory systems assist students in 
making important choices. A series of orientation lec¬ 
tures sometimes helps to clarify the minds of entering 
students and the work of an understanding freshman 
dean or director of studies is of incalculable value. In a 
few institutions a joint committee of faculty and students 
has recently attempted to coordinate these various courses 
and instrumentalities in order that their impact on the 
college community may be more fruitful and that with a 

•An association Secretary at one of the great mid-western 
State universities, at the request of the president of the university, 
recently listed the courses in that institution of which the claim 
was made that they “have a bearing on religious work.” There 
are 105 courses in the list. 



240 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 

fuller knowledge of the available implements of religious 
education, greater effectiveness may be secured. 

Such institutions as have been described do not over¬ 
emphasize moralizing or preaching. They see to it that 
among the winds that blow about and upon the college 
campus is the wind of religion. The student hears the 
voice of it. He may not know whence it cometh or whither 
it goeth. He may hear it on the athletic field, or in the 
biological laboratory, or in the philosophy library. It sur¬ 
prises him not more to hear it in these places than from 
the desk of the preacher or the Bible teacher. Every¬ 
where during his college course he finds a new unfolding 
of his universe, of nature and of human nature around him, 
and the laws by which they operate; and he finds the 
leaven of religion within the processes that yield him his 
enlarging knowledge. Danger is minimized that he will 
form the habit of making obsolete approaches to truth. 
He will not be aware of the alleged chasm between evolu¬ 
tion and revelation. He will have heard of it as a bit of 
history, but he will have his faith grounded in a unitary, 
not a bisected world. He has brought his religious im¬ 
pulses to college; the college has provided a rich environ¬ 
ment which has allowed them healthful development. 

It cannot be said with mathematical precision how many 
colleges are able to command even inadequately all the 
influences and instrumentalities which we have been de¬ 
scribing above. Almost every denomination has a few 
colleges of which this is an approximately true picture. 
The positive Christian quality of their graduates is a 
matter of common knowledge. In the atmosphere of one 
such college, for a term of years, about one-sixth of the 
entire active force of one of the great national missionary 
boards has been trained. The number of men entering 
the Christian ministry on full-time Christian service for 
the past twenty-one years averages 13.7 per cent, of the 
men graduates from the college. Undoubtedly this is an 
extreme case. There are some others like it in the magni- 


RELIGIOUS EDUCATION IN THE COLLEGE 241 

tude of their contribution to Christian service; there are 
many like it in lesser degree. From such colleges, however 
imperfectly the religious work has been carried on, have 
come the majority of the leaders, ministerial and lay, men 
and women, of the Protestant Churches. 

It must be admitted that there are numerous colleges, 
even among those associated with the Churches, that repre¬ 
sent the opposite extreme in their attitude toward con¬ 
structive religious culture. The administration selects 
teachers who are distinguished in the field of scholarship 
but without especial reference to personal qualifications, 
and particularly to religious faith and life. It is absorbed 
largely, it may be, in the scramble for needed funds. It 
may sacrifice more important interests to athletic success. 
It may be paralyzed, as it approaches its religious responsi¬ 
bilities, with the complex elements of the student body; 
with the respectability and wealth and conventionality 
which the students directly or indirectly represent; with 
the presence of the liberal and the conservative, the irre¬ 
ligious and unconcerned; with the fear that with greater 
encouragement to the religious elements of the con¬ 
stituency a morbid religious atmosphere might be de¬ 
veloped or religion become perfunctory and deadening. 
Such a college may conceive of religion chiefly as welfare 
work or social service. It may turn over the whole re¬ 
sponsibility for religious training to the Christian Asso¬ 
ciations and other voluntary agencies. It may assume 
that the religious needs of students may be met by bring¬ 
ing to the college a series of distinguished preachers who 
necessarily work without an intimate knowledge of their 
task. In any event, it is certain the administration does 
not select the faculty and organize the religious per¬ 
sonnel and agencies with the idea of surrounding the 
students with a distinctive and consistently religious at¬ 
mosphere. The college does not have a corporate relig¬ 
ious temper, much less make a definite religious appeal. 

Faculty members chosen in conformity with a negative 


242 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 

or halting estimate of the meaning of religion in the edu¬ 
cational process are likely to consider their responsibilities 
to the institution fully met when the academic work of 
their several departments has been done. With such an 
administrative philosophy and faculty attitude, it is most 
natural that students should become absorbed in social, 
athletic, fraternity, and club expressions of college life to 
the practical exclusion of the religious. That this has 
happened in numerous colleges throughout the country 
must be admitted. It must also be admitted that while 
there is much in the structure and organization of all of 
our higher institutions of learning that is favorable to 
religious education, there are few if any that would claim 
they have attained a satisfactory realization of their possi¬ 
bilities. Many would be inclined, while admitting their 
own shortcomings, to criticize adversely, on the one hand, 
the lack of religious training of students before they reach 
college age, and, on the other hand, the failure of the 
graduate schools to foster the religious element in the 
specialized training that follows the undergraduate 
course. 7 Undoubtedly there is much at both extremes 
of this problem, as well as in the middle, for which the 
Church must share responsibility. 

2. The Teaching of the Bible in the College 
Curriculum 

The curriculum of the Church college has usually 
shown less evidence of a constructive effort to train for 
Christian leadership than is found in the more in¬ 
formal influences. Too often it has followed the 
fashion set by the curriculum of the independent or the 

7 The Educational Relations Division of the National Research 
Council recently made public the distribution of graduate fel¬ 
lowships and scholarships in twelve leading American uni¬ 
versities during the past five years. These twelve universities 
reported 3,377 fellowships of which only two have definite re¬ 
ligious implications—those in “History of Religions” at the 
University of Pennsylvania. 



RELIGIOUS EDUCATION IN THE COLLEGE 243 

State institution. The teaching of the Bible and of sub¬ 
jects definitely connected with the Christian religion have 
too seldom been given the commanding place they deserve. 
Nor has there always been sufficient attention to pre¬ 
senting a Christian interpretation of philosophy, ethics, 
the social sciences, and other subjects of the regular 
curriculum. 

So far as instruction in the Bible is concerned, one may 
now speak with increasing assurance. The Bible is being 
well taught in a considerable number of institutions. The 
custom of “farming out” Bible teaching among the pro¬ 
fessors has been replaced, to a large extent, by the or¬ 
ganization and equipment of a department, or at least a 
chair, of Biblical Literature and History, with especially 
trained instructors. 8 The multiplication of these Biblical 
departments has been one of the striking developments 
of recent educational history. A generation ago there 
were no such departments. The Bible has become a col¬ 
lege study in American colleges since the beginning of 
the twentieth century. 

The total number of such chairs or departments in 
American colleges and universities is now over 300 and 
their number and quality are steadily increasing. The 
number of trained instructors is estimated at 600. The 
serious attempt to standardize such departments has at 
least begun. The Commission of the Religious Education 
Association which has had this task in hand made their 
first report in 1916. At that time but 31 departments had 
been discovered throughout the country entitled to be in 
Class “A,” made up of those whose quality of instruction 
was considered as ranking with that of the departments 
of Literature and History. The requirements for a Class 
“A” department were very modest indeed. The college 
should have at least one well-trained instructor who was 

•The Bible teachers have a national association with a mid- 
western branch and the guild consciousness is being developed 
among them. 



244 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 

giving his entire time to teaching. The president of the 
college, the pastor, the Y.M.C.A. or Y.W.C.A. secre¬ 
tary, could not be the head of this department, nor the 
chaplain unless he were of professorial rank. Fundamental 
courses of but one hour per week were eliminated from 
consideration. The department was required to offer 
at least 18 semester hours of work. Reasonable library 
equipment was demanded and an annual budget sufficient 
to keep the department on a parity with the other depart¬ 
ments of the institution. Measured by these standards, the 
Class “A” departments had increased from 31 in 1916 to 
88 in 1921. Other classes of departments designated as 
“B,” “C,” and “D” have been enumerated to the total of 
some 220, and there is an encouraging movement of these 
departments from year to year to the higher classes. 

It must be confessed that there are numerous motives 
for the extension of this work. They range all the way 
from an effort at scientific interpretation of Biblical litera- 
ature and history to the defense and buttressing of the 
particular brand of faith to which the people who support 
the college subscribe. Sometimes the purpose is to pre¬ 
pare students for the theological seminary; sometimes the 
devotional purpose is paramount in the mind of the teacher. 
The usual purpose, there is evidence to believe, is the 
Christian motivation of the lives of the students. The 
teaching manifestly may be valued as good, bad, and in¬ 
different, depending not only on the dominating motive, 
but upon the scholarship and skill of the teacher. It 
should be said that among these teachers is an increasing 
number of Biblical scholars and educators of the first rank. 

As a rule, however, the Biblical department does not 
now rank among the leading departments either from the 
standpoint of the number of courses offered or the num¬ 
ber of students enrolled. In some of the large women's 
colleges Biblical studies do take a prominent place. In the 
Disciples’ colleges also, to take an extreme case, Biblical 
work takes a commanding place in the curriculum. There 


RELIGIOUS EDUCATION IN THE COLLEGE 245 

is a well-marked tendency among them, as they attain 
higher educational standards, to reduce the amount of 
Biblical work offered. This is not a reflection on the better 
colleges but an indication that much of the work offered in 
the weaker schools is not of college grade. Speaking gen¬ 
erally for all the detached colleges of the country, Biblical 
work of high grade is gaining ground. The statement is 
entirely justified not only that English language and 
literature is thoroughly established as the master subject 
of the American college of liberal arts, but that the 
English Bible is more and more coming to be recognized 
in our colleges as the crown of English literature. 

The complaint is sometimes made that the modern col¬ 
lege teacher of the Bible “upsets” his students; that his 
teaching tends to unsettle the faith of their childhood. 
One of the most experienced and most successful Bible 
teachers of our country, Professor Irving F. Wood of 
Smith College, answers this complaint by the remark. 
“That depends very largely on what the faith of their 
childhood was,” and he gives the assurance that now “less 
and less often is the teacher of the Bible obliged to see the 
pitiful sight of the slow rebuilding of a wrecked childhood 
faith.” 9 

Along with the development of the departments of Bible 
is going a new attention to the interrelation of the Bible 
courses with those in ancient languages, philosophy, ethics, 
psychology, education, economics, the social sciences, and 
history. This interrelation is scarcely less important than 
the Bible teaching itself. 

Several significant experiments are now being made by 
well-known institutions of the independent type to help 
the student in coordinating his otherwise fragmentary 
knowledge, and in some of these attention is given to 
religious values. At Columbia all freshmen are required 

» “Biblical Teaching in School and College,” Sneath’s “Modern 
Christian Callings,” Macmillan Company, New York. 



246 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 

to take a course in contemporary civilization, a part of 
which consists in a setting forth of the fundamentals of 
religious faith and practice. At Harvard all candidates 
for the A.B. degree who have majored in English litera¬ 
ture, modern languages or the classics have set for them 
a three-hour examination in the Bible, which is a part of 
the general examination now required at that institution of 
most of its seniors. 

It is worthy of note that as the standards of Biblical 
instructors and instruction advance, Biblical work gains in 
educational prestige. For some years a number of the lead¬ 
ing colleges and universities have announced certain elec¬ 
tives in Bible for entrance to college. These announce¬ 
ments have usually been based on the recommendations 
of special conferences or committees made up of educators. 
The most recent recommendation of this kind and the one 
which has received the widest recognition is the prelim¬ 
inary report of the Commission on the Definition of a Unit 
of Bible Study for Secondary Schools, with special refer¬ 
ences to college entrance. This Commission was appointed 
by the Council of Church Boards of Education at the 
request of practically all of the national agencies and 
several of the local agencies interested in religious educa¬ 
tion. Not only did the Commission have widely repre¬ 
sentative authority, but the Commission itself was widely 
representative of American Biblical scholarship and educa¬ 
tional administration, and the Definition has been ap¬ 
proved, directly or by implication, by no less than 300 col¬ 
leges and universities. 10 It is manifest that as the schools 
lay more secure foundations for Biblical culture, the col¬ 
leges will be able greatly to improve the effectiveness of 
their work. 


“The Definition has been approved unanimously by the two 
leading college standardizing agencies of the country—the Asso¬ 
ciation of Colleges and Secondary Schools of the Southern 
States, and the North Central Association of Colleges and Sec¬ 
ondary Schools. 



RELIGIOUS EDUCATION IN THE COLLEGE 247 


3. Religious Education in the College Curriculum 


A more recent development is the multiplication of 
courses or departments of Religious Education. This work 
is usually being carried on in conjunction with that in 
Biblical literature and history, or with that of the De¬ 
partment of Education, with which it is in purpose and 
method, perhaps, more closely related. Since no steps have 
been taken by any agency as yet to evaluate this growing 
movement, it is not possible even to give the number of 
such departments or chairs. There are certainly several 
scores of them and they enroll in the aggregate several 
thousand students. The Board of Education of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church, South, is authority for the 
statement that there is not a single college in that denomi¬ 
nation that does not offer a course in religious education, 
and that most of them have well-manned departments. 

In view of the pioneer nature of this work and its great 
importance, a Commission representing the Religious Edu¬ 
cation Association, the Council of Church Boards of 
Education, the International Sunday School Association , 11 
and the Sunday School Council of Evangelical Denomina¬ 
tions, has been working for several years upon the defini¬ 
tion of an undergraduate major in religious education. 
The final report of this Commission has not been made, 
but there is general agreement that 3° semester hours in 
this department should be outlined as a minimum, and that 
the required courses should be: 


Bible... 

The Christian Religion . 

Educational Psychology. 

Introduction to the Study of Religious 

Education . 

Teaching the Christian Religion, with 
observation and practise . 


6 

3 

3 


semester 

a 


3 


« 


4 


<< 


hours 

«< 

tt 


u 


(< 


“Now merged with the Sunday School Council. 








248 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 

A complete curriculum would, of course, provide also 
for courses in Church history, Christian missions, and 
other kindred subjects. 

A significant part of the report of the Commission, 
as thus far made, raises the question, “Who should teach 
these subjects ?” and the answer indicates the trend of edu¬ 
cational aspiration in this field: 

“The treatment of religious education should not be 
less serious, thorough, and technical than the treatment 
that ‘general’ education receives. In both fields technically 
equipped specialists are required as teachers. A tempta¬ 
tion will arise to entrust some or all of the subjects that 
have been named to the ‘handy man’ of the faculty; or to 
append them as secondary duties to the schedules of 
teachers whose training and first interests lie elsewhere; 
or to appoint someone as teacher on the ground of avail¬ 
ability and cheapness; or to group existing courses that 
deal with the Bible, religion, and education, and call them 
‘religious education.’ Administrators should clearly un¬ 
derstand that what is required is not a new name for an 
old thing, nor merely new permutations and combinations 
of courses and students. Our recommendation concerns 
a new branch of study with specific aims and subject 
matter of its own, together with a new approach to certain 
older subjects. Effective education in this field cannot 
begin too soon, for the need is tragically imperative; yet 
it would be less evil to wait indefinitely for proper con¬ 
ditions of income, teaching staff, and library, than to 
substitute anything whatever for high-grade teaching.” 

This general survey of developments now taking place 
in the colleges is full of hope, but it represents only a 
beginning in meeting the responsibility confronting the 
Church. The colleges founded by the Church and drawing 
support from it have a distinctive function that the tax- 
supported State university does not have. Their purpose 
is to train for Christian leadership. Included in this 
general task are three clear responsibilities: (i) to give 


I 


RELIGIOUS EDUCATION IN THE COLLEGE 249 

to all the students an intelligent appreciation of the 
Christian religion; (2) to provide the special training 
needed to equip many men to serve as well-trained lay 
workers in their local churches; (3) to lay the best pos¬ 
sible foundation for the smaller group who are to enter 
the ministry or other forms of Christian service as a 
profession. 

If the Christian college is not fulfilling this three-fold 
function it has lost its raison d'etre, and is only competing 
with the State institutions in providing a secular type of 
education which the State institution can usually better 
provide. If the curriculum of the Christian college is not 
to provide positively for the teaching of religion its spe¬ 
cial crown and glory is gone. A general ‘‘Christian atmos¬ 
phere,” fundamentally important as it is, will not make 
up for this lack. Indeed, the spirit and atmosphere of 
the college will be deeply affected by the emphasis which 
is given, or is not given, to religion in the curriculum. 
For what is taught in the class-room is an unmistakable 
indication of what the college regards as of real 
importance. 

The Christian college will not be fulfilling its mission 
until religion is treated as one of the most important fields 
of knowledge in the curriculum, as well provided for as 
the departments of science or history, and claiming a fair 
share of the thought and attention of all the students. 
Indeed, even this is not enough. The function of the 
Christian college ought to be to give a Christian interpre¬ 
tation of all truth. The teaching of biology, psychology, 
economics, history, ethics, philosophy, and literature in a 
Christian college must be related vitally and organically 
to the Christian conception of God and His purpose for 
the world. 


-j 


CHAPTER XI 


RELIGIOUS EDUCATION IN THE TAX- 
SUPPORTED INSTITUTION 

The tax-supported institutions it is necessary to treat, 
in part at least, as a separate class, because of certain 
legal disqualifications, real or hypothetical, growing out of 
the principle of the separation of Church and State. 1 

State universities are usually understood to be legally 
disqualified from teaching religion. The more accurate 
statement would be that they are disqualified from pro¬ 
moting sectarianism. There is a popular misconception 
that such institutions are to be described as “godless.” 
There have been numerous and conflicting decisions and 
opinions on the part of the legal authorities, such as that 
the Bible is a sectarian book or that a teacher of religion 
will necessarily have a sectarian bias, so that the total 
effect has been to make the official teaching of religion by 
State universities a difficult, if not a dangerous, matter. 

Not all of the impotence of the State and municipal 
institutions in matters religious is due to the provisions of 
the law, the decisions of the courts, or the opinions of the 
legal and educational authorities. The Churches must 
bear their share of the blame for a situation confessedly 
by no means ideal. In the succinct words of President 
Vinson of the University of Texas: “The separatist ten¬ 
dencies of our Protestantism are an added difficulty in the 
interpretation and practical application of a law which 


1 In a more comprehensive study of higher education it would 
be important to give a separate treatment also to the independent 
institution—like Yale, Harvard, or Columbia—which is under the 
control of neither Church nor State. 

250 



THE TAX-SUPPORTED INSTITUTION 251 

was never designed as a means of placing education and 
religion under irreconcilable categories and of making our 
culture a purely intellectual process/’ 

1. The Interest of State Universities in Religion 

In considering the influences affecting the work of 
Christian education in these institutions it is important to 
understand clearly the favorable attitude of most of the 
executive officers. Over and over again the presidents of 
Michigan, Ohio State, Ohio University, Miami, Illinois, 
Indiana, Kentucky, Iowa, Arkansas, California, Kansas, 
Kansas State, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, 
Mississippi, Cornell, Penn State, South Carolina, Uni¬ 
versity of Pennsylvania, Missouri, Montana State College, 
Oregon Agricultural College, Idaho, Utah, Texas, Wash¬ 
ington, and Wisconsin, and no doubt others, have publicly 
and privately emphasized the recognition of religion as an 
essential in educational effort. These executives are posi¬ 
tive forces in developing the religious consciousness and 
instilling religious sanctions. President Kinley of the 
University of Illinois has recently voiced this favorable 
attitude in the declaration, “There is no complete educa¬ 
tion without religion.” If the attitude of the presidents 
generally were otherwise, the problems of religious edu¬ 
cation in state institutions would be difficult indeed. 

This interest of the executives in the religious phase of 
education is confirmed by the type of men selected for 
faculty positions. Out of 2,832 faculty members in 33 
State universities recently reporting on their religious 
affiliations, 70 per cent, expressed denominational prefer¬ 
ence (mostly Protestant) and of the 30 per cent, express¬ 
ing no denominational preference, many are known to be 
religiously inclined. It is true that the percentage showing 
no preference is twice as great as among the students. It 
is even true that many college and university professors, 
within and without the State institutions, seem to show 


252 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 

little but contempt for the Church. At the same time, 
many of the Churches in the college and university com¬ 
munities are supported almost entirely by the professors. 
They are Church officials, teach Bible classes, and attend 
Church services quite as regularly as any other class of 
men in the community. In a majority of the State col¬ 
leges and universities a greater or less amount of subject 
matter for religious education is found in the various de¬ 
partmental announcements and is made dynamic by Chris¬ 
tian professors. In some of them an undercurrent of re¬ 
ligious conviction is a characteristic phase of the corporate 
character. In many instances faculty members in State 
institutions are doing much the same type of religious work 
as that done by similar men in the denominational colleges; 
indeed, in its freedom from sectarian bias it is often com¬ 
parable with the educational work on the foreign field. 

Not a few State universities go further than might be 
expected in distinctively encouraging the religious life. 
This is particularly true of the Southern State universities, 
which employ and pay the salaries, in full or in part, of 
secretaries of the Y.M.C.A. and the Y.W.C.A. At the 
University of Oklahoma, the Kansas State Agricultural 
College, and Pennsylvania State College courses in re¬ 
ligious education have recently been established in con¬ 
junction with the Department of Education. The Uni¬ 
versity of South Carolina has compulsory Church and 
chapel attendance, and a chair of English Bible covering 
four years. 

The attitude of the administration of many State univer¬ 
sities is indicated by such catalogue announcements as 
follow, which are selected almost at random: 

“Morning services are held daily, except Sunday, in the 
Main Building, with addresses by clergymen, resident and 
visiting, and by members of the faculty. 

“The Association of Religious Teachers, an organization 
in which the various religious bodies cooperate, offers a 
number of courses to the students of the university. This 


THE TAX-SUPPORTED INSTITUTION 253 

work, carried on with good sense, vigor, and friendly co¬ 
operation, supplies well the religious element in education 
that the American State university by reason of its con¬ 
nection with the State cannot itself attempt. 

“The university, although it has no official connection 
with any particular denominational body, endeavors to 
develop an earnest appreciation of ethical and social obliga¬ 
tions, and to encourage participation in religious activities. 

“While the University cannot exercise any official super¬ 
vision over the religious life and education of the students, 
it does, however, offer in the departments of history, 
philosophy, and literature, many courses in which the 
principles of morals and religion are discussed and the life 
teachings of the great religious teachers are considered and 
the history of great religious and ethical movements is 
traced. 

“The various religious agencies found within the uni¬ 
versity community supplement in an unofficial way the 
work of the university in fulfilling the aim of all true 
education to prepare students for leadership in the affairs 
of human life. 

“Religious exercises, consisting of Scripture readings, 
singing, and prayer, are held frequently in the university 
assembly. At these exercises a special lecture or address 
is given by some noted speaker. Although attendance is 
voluntary, the purpose of cultivating the moral, religious, 
and social spirit of the university is heartily recognized.” 

In certain institutions, like the University of Michigan, 
more than 30 courses are offered in the university classes 
in the history, literature, and application of religion. In 
most of the State universities, all-university religious con¬ 
vocations are held at different times during the year. To 
address these great gatherings religious and social leaders 
of national and international distinction are secured. While 
in many instances these convocations are financed by the 
religious forces about the campus, in others the university 
itself carries a substantial proportion of the expenses. 
Numerous tax-supported institutions have also led in hold¬ 
ing State-wide conferences of rural and other Church 
workers, and have thereby contributed no small part in 


254 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 

stimulating the religious life within their own communities 
and throughout the State. 

What may be called the fundamentally religious side of 
the State university's task was expressed at a recent annual 
meeting of the National Association of State Universities 
by President Birge of the University of Wisconsin in 
eloquent words: 

“Of old, democracy was hindered of its fruits and 
cheated of its life by social rigidity, and against this situ¬ 
ation the university protested. Today democracy is in 
danger of loss as the sense of common interests and a 
common life becomes weakened. At such a time can the 
university render a higher service to democracy than to 
preserve and strengthen those spiritual ideals common to 
us and to our fathers, shared by our nation with sister 
nations all over the world, honored and revered through¬ 
out all ages, and a part of our common inheritance from 
the past?" 

The university authorities all recognize, however, that 
the chief work of religious education must be done by the 
churches, and that to be most effective it should be carried 
on ordinarily by cooperative effort. Within the past decade 
much progress has been made in this cooperative work, as 
the following sketch will show. 


2. Types of Religious Work in State Institutions 2 

In some State institutions, as well as some municipal 
and independent universities, there are to be found no paid 
workers devoting their entire time to the religious life of 
the students. In the case of the municipal institutions, 
approximately 90 per cent, of the students are from 
the city in which the institution is located. The local 
Churches would seem to have here both a serious re- 


2 For a fuller discussion, see “Christian Education,” Vol. IV, 
No. 9, June, 1921. Published by the Council of Church Boards 
of Education, in Fifth Avenue, New York. 



THE TAX-SUPPORTED INSTITUTION 255 

sponsibility and a remarkable opportunity for cooperative 
work. 

Some form of religious education is operative in no 
fewer than 83 tax-supported institutions, although the 
work could not be considered adequate in any of them. 
It is not possible within the space allotted for this discus¬ 
sion to indicate all the different types of effort. Many of 
these—to be true to the facts, it must be admitted most of 
them—are in the experimental stage. But they are carried 
on by devoted and courageous men and women and they 
are meeting with success. Especially important is it to 
study the efforts to secure a unified program, for, as 
already suggested, one of the greatest obstacles to the 
development of religious education in the tax-supported 
institution is a sectarian emphasis. Typical experiments 
can at least be pointed out. 

A. The Approach Through Student Organizations 

1. The Christian Associations . 3 —There can be no 
adequate exposition of the religious education of college 
and university students without fuller discussion than is 
here possible of the work of the Student Departments of 
the Young Men’s and the Young Women’s Christian Asso¬ 
ciations, and such related agencies as the Student Volun¬ 
teer Movement for Foreign Missions. These agencies are 
operating in some form in most of the institutions of 
higher learning in the country, including normal schools 
and professional schools of college rank. 

In some fields the Young Men’s Associations and the 
Young Women’s Associations, with the affiliated organiza¬ 
tions, are working practically alone so far as any national 
Christian agencies are concerned. This is true in so im¬ 
portant an institution as the University of Minnesota. In 
almost all institutions the Associations were the first 

3 The work here described refers, of course, to the denomina¬ 
tional and independent institutions as well as to those that are 
tax supported. 



256 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 

agencies to enter these fields and the Churches owe them a 
great debt of gratitude. 

The voluntary study work of the Y.M.C.A. and the 
Y.W.C.A. consists chiefly of Bible study classes, world 
fellowship or mission study classes, and discussion 
groups on Christian fundamentals—all of which are too 
well known and appreciated to require special comment. 
Both Associations conduct social study classes, which are 
continued during the summer through such groups as the 
social service group in New York City, and Christian 
industrial research groups in different cities. The 
Y.W.C.A. organizes student-industrial groups, which in¬ 
clude study classes and mutual undertakings of students 
and industrial women, as well as study groups of students 
in three large cities. The Y.M.C.A. promotes also nor¬ 
mal training classes for all the courses of study recom¬ 
mended. The Associations are rendering a further valu¬ 
able educational service in the production of popular and 
useful text-books, in conducting public religious meetings 
and conferences, and in deputation work. 

For many years the Y.M.C.A. and the Y.W.C.A. 
have both made a very large contribution to the religious 
life of student groups throughout the nation through the 
summer Student Conferences, now numbering seven for 
men and ten for women, and enrolling thousands of 
picked student religious leaders. Within the past few 
years a plan has been put into operation in several of the 
conferences, both men’s and women’s, for relating the 
Churches more directly to the summer conferences. This 
plan provides for a continuous and systematic representa¬ 
tion of the Boards of the various Churches, and its suc¬ 
cess registers a most satisfactory effort at cooperation be¬ 
tween the Churches and the Associations. While the con¬ 
ferences remain, as formerly, Association conferences 
from the legal standpoint, in practice they approximate 
Christian student conferences under the auspices of the 
Associations and the Churches. 


THE TAX-SUPPORTED INSTITUTION 257 

2. Affiliated Organizations .—The Student Volunteer 
Movement, composed of students expecting to become for¬ 
eign missionaries, undertakes to develop among college and 
university students a study of foreign missions and a 
better understanding of missionary problems and to secure 
new recruits for missionary service. More than 9,000 
members of the Movement have actually sailed for as¬ 
signed work in foreign fields during the past quarter of 
a century. The Committee on Missionary Preparation, 
working under the authority of the Foreign Missions 
Conference, makes two significant contributions to mis¬ 
sionary training, first, through advising undergraduates 
who are studying for missionary service as to the best 
courses to pursue; secondly, by giving guidance to mis¬ 
sionaries on furlough in selecting the institutions and the 
lines of study which will best equip them for the peculiar 
needs which their experience on the foreign field has made 
apparent. 

Both Associations have Committees on Friendly Rela¬ 
tions Among Foreign Students which work in close co¬ 
operation. The Young Women’s Committee deals 
directly with 2,000 women students from other lands who 
are enrolled in higher institutions of learning. The field 
of the Young Men’s Committee is the 8,000 or more 
foreign young men who have come to our American 
colleges and universities. A stafif of American and of 
foreign secretaries is maintained who travel extensively 
among the universities in the interest of foreign students, 
promoting clubs, Bible classes, discussion groups, Chris¬ 
tian hospitality, and summer conferences. A few of the 
larger cities or universities have special secretaries giving 
all of their time to foreign students. The general aims 
of the work are, first, the development of understanding 
and good-will between foreign students and the American 
public; and, second, the development of the student 
Christian program. Both of these objects take on urgent 
importance in view of the careers to which many of these 


258 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 

students will return. The effort is made to reveal to 
these transient students the best products of our civiliza¬ 
tion, while enabling them to understand that the unlovely 
things represent the areas unconquered by Christianity. 

The Student Fellowship for Christian Life Service, 
recently organized, has as its fundamental purpose “to 
unite those students committed to Christian life service 
in prayer, study, and vigorous effort to make America 
Christian for the friendly service of the world.” Any 
student who is enlisted for full-time Christian service, 
even though he does not yet know whether he will serve 
at home or abroad, may become a member. A representa¬ 
tive of the Fellowship is expected to be present at each 
Student Conference. 

B. The Pastoral Approach 

i. The University Pastor .—Approximately 200 uni¬ 
versity pastors are now employed by the Churches on full 
or part time. Generally they are related closely to one or 
more of the Churches in the adjacent community and 
seek especially to keep the students in vital contact with 
the organized religious life of the Church. The develop¬ 
ment of the university pastor marks a distinct advance in 
the sense of responsibility of the Churches for the life of 
the students. A Conference of Church Workers in Uni¬ 
versities has been formed for mutual helpfulness. 

At the University of Illinois the Baptist students have 
been organized into a regular Church, the direction of 
which is entirely in the hands of the students. The only 
responsibilities assumed by the professors are those of 
teaching in the classes of the Bible School. Students 
bring their letters from their home Churches and take 
membership in this Church as they would in any other 
Church of the community, and are dismissed by letter at 
the close of their student career. The Church has a 
splendid building and a regular pastor whose salary is 


THE TAX-SUPPORTED INSTITUTION 259 

paid by the Baptist Board of Education and the Illinois 
Baptist State Convention. By this method of organiza¬ 
tion the students are receiving a thorough training in all 
the responsibilities of Church management. 

In institutions that do not have sufficient students to 
warrant a university pastor there is now an increasing 
number of denominational clubs or associations. The 
student clubs formed among the Episcopal and the Luth¬ 
eran students are exceptionally successful. They are 
engaged in strengthening Church ties and providing train¬ 
ing in some forms of Church work. Such agencies, as 
well as the work of the university pastor, emphasize the 
fact that the most healthy religious life for students is 
ordinarily that which centers around the activities of a 
normal Church. 

2. The Inter church University Pastor .—In a number 
of smaller fields interchurch pastors are employed. At 
Ohio University four denominations join in supporting 
a university pastor who acts as associate pastor to all of 
the Churches cooperating in the plan. He also directs 
the work of the Christian Association. For such an 
arrangement a definite plan has been agreed upon which 
provides for each Church an official board and a com¬ 
mittee on Student Relations and a Student Council. For 
the broader cooperative effort there is an interchurch 
committee, composed of one man and one woman from 
each Church, which serves in an advisory and executive 
capacity for the religious activities of the entire university. 

At the Michigan Agricultural College four denomina¬ 
tions unitedly support a Church worker who acts under 
a plan of closest affiliation with the pastor of the local 
community Church. The Church work here is very suc¬ 
cessful and much overtaxes the available headquarters. 
Arrangements are being made for the calling of a 
women’s worker who will be closely associated with the 
interdenominational university pastor and with the local 
community Church. Numerous other plans are in oper- 


260 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 


ation similar to those at Ohio University and Michigan 
Agricultural College, and the number of such arrange¬ 
ments will undoubtedly be greatly multiplied. 

3. Unified Organisation of Paid Church Workers .— 
Another notable experiment is the interdenominational 
organization of Church workers such as is found in the 
united Christian work at Cornell University. It has a 
coordinating executive who has about him a staff of sev¬ 
eral denominational representatives, each of whom is a 
specialist in some particular field—such as Bible study, 
missionary education, or pastoral contacts. There is a 
unified salary budget, to which contributions are made 
both from local sources and from the national boards. 
The approach to the students, while thus effectively 
divided into its functional phases, includes also denom¬ 
inational care. 

4. Unified Organisation of Mens and Women's 
Work and of Church and Association Workers. —At the 
University of Pennsylvania there is an organization simi¬ 
lar to the one described at Cornell, except that it includes 
the women’s work as well as the men’s. Secretaries for 
specialized work as well as denominational workers are 
included in one single incorporated organization, known 
as the Christian Association of the University of Penn¬ 
sylvania, the men’s department of which is affiliated with 
the Student Y.M.C.A. The university pastors are 
rated also as Association secretaries. There is a unified 
budget which is distributed between the different depart¬ 
ments of the Association’s work, with a central treasury 
and centralized financial responsibility. Similar plans 
with slight modifications are operating elsewhere, for ex¬ 
ample, in the University of Michigan. 

5. Partially Coordinated Work of Seminaries and 
Church and Association Workers. —Another very prom¬ 
ising type of development is found at Berkeley, the seat 
of the University of California. Within the university 
community are three theological seminaries: the Pacific 


THE TAX-SUPPORTED INSTITUTION 261 

School of Religion “for students of all denominations”; 
the Berkeley Baptist Divinity School; and the Pacific 
Unitarian School for Ministers. In addition to these, 
the San Francisco Theological Seminary (Presbyterian) 
has an extension department at Berkeley in the West¬ 
minster School for Christian Social Service, presided over 
by the Presbyterian university pastor. 

There are 11 churches located near the campus, and 
well-equipped Y.M.C.A. and Y.W.C.A., with all the 
usual lines of activity. In cooperation with these agencies 
the Episcopal Church is establishing a university pastor, 
who will represent the Church Divinity School of the 
Pacific, located in San Francisco. The Baptist and 
Methodists also have student pastors. These Christian 
forces usually work in informal but in very real co¬ 
operation. There is an extensive interchange of courses 
and of library facilities among the seminaries. They 
combine to procure special lecturers. Students in all these 
Church schools may register also in the university (al¬ 
though credit is not granted automatically by the uni¬ 
versity for work done in the seminaries). Credentials 
of students from seminaries may be offered through the 
Board of Admissions for recognition by the university. 
The head of the Department of Education in the uni¬ 
versity is a well-known expert in religious education, 
and very much interested in the promotion of Christian 
culture, as are the president of the university and many 
of the leading professors, although there is no formal 
connection between any of these agencies and the uni¬ 
versity itself. 

C. The Educational Approach 
1. Foundations at Universities 

At a number of institutions educational foundations 
have been established by the Churches, providing regular 
instruction in religion, generally with credit allowed by 


262 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 


the university. The Methodists have the Wesley Foun¬ 
dations, the Presbyterians the Westminster Foundations, 
the Baptists the Francis Wayland Foundations, and the 
Disciples no fewer than nine agencies usually known as 
the Bible Colleges or Chairs. The Wesley Foundations 
at Illinois, Wisconsin, and North Dakota, and the Dis¬ 
ciples’ Bible College at Missouri, School of Religion at 
Indiana, and Bible Chairs at Kansas and Texas Uni¬ 
versities, have attained a considerable degree of success 
in their effort to approach the university membership 
from the educational as well as the pastoral angle. The 
instruction consists of such courses as New Testament 
History, Old Testament History, History of Religion, 
The Bible—Its Ideals and Institutions, Biblical Literature, 
Social Religion, Religious Education, Science and Re¬ 
ligion, the Teachings of Jesus, and other subjects in the 
general field of religion. 

Statements in the Methodist Episcopal Church press 
indicate that twice as many missionaries are now going 
to the field in one year from the institutions in which 
Wesley Foundations exist as went from them during 
thirty years before the Foundations were organized. 
That is to say, 60 to i is the ratio of progress already 
attained in this particular direction, due in part at least 
to this youthful and very slightly subsidized undertaking. 
The University Secretary of the Disciples’ Board of Edu¬ 
cation recently reported that “the assets of the four Bible 
Chairs of the Disciples at the Universities of Virginia, 
Michigan, Kansas, and Texas, and the four institutions 
affiliated with the Board of Education, the Bible College 
of Missouri, California School of Christianity, Illinois 
Disciples Foundation, and Indiana School of Religion, 
and the independent institution, Eugene Bible University, 
a £g re g a te a total of $2,000,000 accumulated for use in 
these nine State university centers.” 

At Ohio State and at Wisconsin the Baptists have 
organized Francis Wayland Foundations, inaugurated in 


THE TAX-SUPPORTED INSTITUTION 263 

accord with the laws of their respective States for the 
holding of property. The trustees of the Foundations 
are representative Baptists from the Churches in the 
localities, and the Baptist State Conventions of their 
respective States and the Northern Baptist Convention. 
At Ohio State the Foundation is now engaged in securing 
a half block of property directly opposite the campus 
upon which are to be erected Church buildings and dormi¬ 
tories for social and educational purposes. 

Acting upon the direction of the Synod of Ohio, the 
Presbyterian Committee on the Church’s Work in Uni¬ 
versities has taken out incorporation papers for the West¬ 
minster Foundation of Ohio. The corporation exists for 
the purpose of holding, managing, buying and selling all 
the property, both real and personal, of the Presbyterian 
Synod of Ohio for work among students. 

The work of Wesley College at the University of 
North Dakota may be cited as a unique experiment in 
this field. This institution has been in operation for more 
than 15 years as a duly recognized institution of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church. The original formal agree¬ 
ment between the president of the University and the 
president of Wesley College as to its scope and function 
has not been modified during that time and there has 
never been friction or complaint from either side. Wesley 
College has its own plant and campus and the disciplinary 
oversight of its students on its own grounds. The build¬ 
ings now consist of a dormitory for men and one for 
women, and a building that serves as an administration 
and music hall. It has a faculty of 15 and fully 375 
students elect some of its courses. It provides, in effect, 
a department of religious education and a department 
of music for the University. Students may take degrees 
from both institutions. The college offers, in the Bible, 
two hours each in “The Life of Jesus,” “The Teachings 
of Jesus,” “Social Ideals of the Prophets,” and “Social 
Teachings of Jesus and His Followers”; in history, two 


264 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 

hours each in “History of the Hebrews” and “Outlines 
of Church History”; two hours each in “Principles of 
Religious Education,” “Teaching the Christian Religion,” 
“Organization and Administration of Religious Educa¬ 
tion”; in the church and world agriculture, two hours 
each in “The Church and Agriculture,” and “The Church 
and Agriculture Abroad”; and in extension service 
(without credit) a “Rural Pastors’ Clinic” and “Com¬ 
munity Surveys.” 

Probably the furthest developed of any of the educa¬ 
tional approaches of the Disciples at State universities is 
the Bible College of Missouri, opened in 1898, adjacent 
to the campus of the University of Missouri. It has a 
good college building and an endowment for three pro¬ 
fessors. For the past few years the Presbyterians have 
been supporting a Presbyterian representative in the 
faculty, and the institution has extended an invitation to 
other religious bodies to join in its faculty, directorate, 
and support. Two other denominations are working out 
plans for cooperation. The institution has confined itself 
almost entirely to the work of Biblical and religious 
teaching. It has a credit relation with the university. 
Its enrolment has often gone beyond 200 per year. It 
includes in its classes a number of students preparing for 
the ministry and mission field, and gives them what might 
be called a pre-seminary course. The school has defi¬ 
nitely followed the program of attempting to combine the 
offering of undergraduate courses to regular university 
students, and at the same time to meet the needs of 
ministerial and missionary students. Its professors have 
rendered much service as religious counselors to the uni¬ 
versity students, as teachers of voluntary classes and 
participants in the regular work of the local churches. 

2. The Cooperating School of Religion 

The Cooperating School of Religion, maintained by a 
group of denominations jointly, is still more of an ideal 


THE TAX-SUPPORTED INSTITUTION 265 

than a fact, although nine cooperative schools are now 
being developed in close relation to the State Universities 
of Texas, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri, Illinois, 
Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio. Thus far the courses have 
been offered simply for undergraduates. In five of these 
schools of religion, between 6 and 40 semester hours are 
already recognized by the State University as a basis for 
credit towards graduation. 

At the University of Texas six men, well equipped for 
Biblical instruction, have organized an Association of 
Religious Teachers for credits under specific rules laid 
down by the University authorities, for the purpose of 
furnishing some systematic Biblical and religious instruc¬ 
tion to the students. 

There is an increasing conviction that the problem of 
religious education in universities will not adequately be 
met until the denominations unite in providing a school 
which shall rank in educational efficiency and prestige 
with the Schools of Education, Medicine, Law, and 
Engineering, and shall be the center for all the formal 
and academic, as well as the informal and personal, re¬ 
ligious interests and activities of the university. After 
many years of administrative experience, the late Presi¬ 
dent Charles R. Van Hise observed: “I am unhesitatingly 
of the opinion that the movement for the School of 
Religion under the combined auspices of the various 
churches is far more important for the State of Wis¬ 
consin, the university, and the student body, than indi¬ 
vidual chapels or additional dormitory space. ... A 
School of Religion established by the cooperation of the 
various denominations would meet the needs for instruc¬ 
tion along religious lines for all students who are inter¬ 
ested in such instruction.” The same view has been 
expressed with equal emphasis by President Van Hise's 
successor, President E. A. Birge, who recently wrote: “I 
believe that the religious bodies ought to unite in giving 
courses, if they are to be credited for work at the uni- 


266 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 


rv 


versity. The single denominations are hardly likely to 
have funds enough to secure high-grade men and there 
will always be the possibility of denominational contro¬ 
versies which, would prejudice the general situation.” 
The opinion here expressed by these seasoned university 
executives is held by an increasing number of educational 
and religious leaders. 

It must be said, however, that there is the disposition 
on the part of numerous ecclesiastical authorities to estab¬ 
lish courses in connection with the universities under 
strictly denominational control. During the post-war period 
these denominational agencies have made more progress 
in the United States than the cooperative ones. This 
undoubtedly retards the recognition of religious work by 
the universities and raises numerous complicated educa¬ 
tional problems. At the University of Toronto, and 
particularly at McGill University, Montreal, the cooper¬ 
ative work of the theological colleges has attained most 
satisfactory results. * 4 One of the most striking results 
has been the discovery that seven-eighths of the courses 
offered by the different denominational colleges can be 
offered on a cooperative basis without injustice to denom¬ 
inational points of view. Those who see the tremendous 
potentialities of the quarter of a million choice young 
men and women in our state and municipal universities 
and colleges, and who see how indispensable is a united 
approach to any adequate solution of the problem of their 
religious education, will watch eagerly for further signs 
of progress. 

From this brief survey it will be noted that it is only 
the informal and pastoral functions of religious education 
which are in operation, for the most part, at present in 
our tax-supported universities. The types of work car¬ 
ried on in connection with most of the plans outlined 
above have to do with that great mass of extra-curriculum 

i 

4 See “Christian Education,” Vol. V., No. io, July, 1922, for 
fuller exposition of the Canadian plan. 



THE TAX-SUPPORTED INSTITUTION 267 

work summed up under the ambiguous phrase “student 
activities.” Only in the foundations and Bible chairs is 
formal instruction attempted of a type comparable with 
that done in other university fields. 

What has been done is at least an indication of the 
general direction in which we must move in providing for 
a program of religious education in the State university. 
On the whole the tax-supported institutions must be 
listed among those having, in the large, the Christian 
spirit. They afford an opportunity to the Christian forces 
to carry on unsectarian, broad, and thorough programs 
of religious education. Religion can count the State uni¬ 
versity as an ally, in spirit if not in form. 

3. Suggestions for the Future 

The effort has been made in this chapter and the pre¬ 
ceding one to state in some detail the factors from which 
a science of religious education for college and university 
students may be constructed. It is evident that there is 
a wealth of material for such a science. The impulses, 
instincts, and habits; the personnel—administrative, 
teaching, and student; the academic structure, the 
organization, and the rich content of subject matter, are 
there; even the motives and methods are generally favor¬ 
able, though not always defined with clearness. A few of 
the instruments of religious education have become 
appreciably effective. There are small groups of special¬ 
ized workers. But what has been done is a mere 
beginning. 

For the consummation of this task the most important 
thing is a deeper recognition that an institution of higher 
learning cannot become an ideal instrument for religious 
education unless there is a will to make it such, in the 
minds of those responsible for its policy and program. 
It is fundamental that the faculty, whether in denom¬ 
inational college or State university, be chosen with 


268 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 

reference to this desired end. This does not mean that 
the corporation shall attempt to “put something over” at 
whatever cost. It means that religious education must 
be treated with respect. It means that the promotion of 
religion must be recognized as essential to the highest 
promotion of the true, the beautiful, and the good, in the 
life of the individual and the race. 

Still more is needed than a favorable disposition on the 
part of the authorities if religion is to receive its true 
place in higher education. There are certain processes 
which demand fuller development. 

(a) A beginning only has been made in the matter of 
necessary definitions. A preliminary definition of a unit 
of Bible study for secondary schools, with a view to 
credit for admission to college, has gained wide acceptance. 
There is a working definition of a college department of 
Biblical literature and history. A representative group 
is at work on a definition of a college course in religious 
education. These are but illustrations of what is re¬ 
quired within the broad expanse of the curriculum. Not 
only must units and courses and departments and schools, 
which are concerned immediately and formally with the 
task of religious education, be clearly defined, but per¬ 
sistent effort must be made to place a vital interpretation 
upon the more remote factors of the curriculum. The 
religious implications of literature, history, art, phi¬ 
losophy; of the social, mathematical, physical, and biolog¬ 
ical sciences; of the vocational subjects and of “student 
activities” and the forms of college government and disci¬ 
pline as well, must be studied and their values for re¬ 
ligious education clearly understood. The process of 
definition must extend also into the area of ideas and 
ideals—to motives and ends, methods and means, con¬ 
cerning which at present there is much confusion. 

(b) There should be a thoroughgoing revaluation of 
the means of religious education in the college and uni¬ 
versity. The daily chapel, the sermon, pastoral care, the 


THE TAX-SUPPORTED INSTITUTION 269 

“series of meetings,” the prayer meeting, the varied ac¬ 
tivities of the volunteer agencies, are all traditional ex¬ 
pressions of the attempt to serve the religious needs of 
students and faculty. To what extent do these and others 
like them actually function in religious education? 

(c) The more recently devised means of religious edu¬ 
cation need also to be given the most serious study: 

1. The Biblical Department is now coming to be clearly 
recognized. But the teaching of the Bible may or may 
not be religious education. Religion is not merely a sub¬ 
ject of study. If the teacher of the Bible is both a scholar 
and a teacher of religion, he will teach with the spirit 
that makes men religious as well as with the understand¬ 
ing that makes men scholars. One who is to teach re¬ 
ligion must be compounded of the right proportions of 
scholarship and sympathy. 

2. A few colleges have departments of religious edu¬ 
cation well equipped and well manned. When these de¬ 
partments are adequately developed they will be able to 
serve two important functions. They will, in the first 
place, make a valuable contribution on the cultural side 
to the religious development of students; in the second 
place, they will lay the foundations for a professional 
training which will meet to some extent the greatest 
need of religious education today—the need of qualified 
teachers of religion, in addition to the preaching min¬ 
istry. Religious education will advance slowly until the 
colleges can pour forth into the schools of the local 
Churches a stream of teachers, administrators, and super¬ 
visors as well equipped for their task as those who now 
go into the work of the public schools. 

3. A number of institutions are giving orientation 
courses in which the effort is made to assist the student 
in finding his place in the midst of his enlarging life. 
It is important that the leaders of these courses be not 
blind leading the blind. At their best estate the courses 
deal with what may be called the fundamentals of human 


270 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 

living in their individual and social implications, a mean¬ 
ing being given to social broad enough to lead to divine 
as well as human relationships. 

4. One of the most recent specialists in the field of re¬ 
ligious education is the university pastor. While no sys¬ 
tem has been devised as yet to give these men formal 
training for their specialized tasks, they are increasing in 
efficiency as well as numbers. Their teaching function 
has not yet been highly developed. While having fairly 
well defined denominational responsibilities, it is im¬ 
portant that they work out interdenominational arrange¬ 
ments by which rivalries and duplications may be avoided 
and a united religious appeal made to the university. 

5. At a number of the universities there are founda¬ 
tions, Bible chairs, or schools of religion which are ap¬ 
proaching the problems of religious education from the 
educational rather than the pastoral point of view. The 
tendency thus far has been for these agencies to attempt 
primarily to meet denominational needs. The University 
School of Religion is scarcely a fact as yet. It will be¬ 
come a fact as the processes of religious education extend 
and ecclesiastical leaders come to understand that a de¬ 
nominational approach cannot provide an effective instru¬ 
ment of education in the university. 

Finally, and of great importance, there can he no con¬ 
sistent system of religious education until there is a dis¬ 
position to coordimte as well as develop agencies. All 
agencies must be cemented in the spirit of unselfish co¬ 
operation into a united organism guided by a common 
purpose. This applies not only to the work of the various 
denominations in their relation to each other but quite as 
strongly to the relation of the Y.M.C.A. and the Y.W.C.A. 
to the Churches. It will be only when the day of full 
cooperation comes that religion will occupy a command¬ 
ing place in higher education. 


CHAPTER XII 


EDUCATION FOR THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY 

The central place in the Church’s educational system 
is held by the theological seminary. The character of 
the training given here conditions success or failure all 
along the line. What the Church is to become will depend 
largely upon its ministry, and what its ministry is to 
be will be determined largely by the kind of preparation 
received. The tone of the Church at large will not rise 
far above the tone of the individual minister, who as 
leader of worship, teacher, pastor, administrator of parish 
activities, director of social work, and interpreter of the 
meaning of Christianity for our contemporary social life, 
is the mainspring of the Christian movement. The re¬ 
cruiting and training of the ministry becomes therefore 
an issue of paramount importance for the entire Church. 

i. The Present Agencies of Theological Education 

This fact has been fully appreciated by the Churches 
of America. From the first they have realized the im¬ 
portance of an educated ministry and taken steps to pro¬ 
vide it. The chief motive which led to the founding of 
our colleges and universities, as was pointed out in an 
earlier chapter, was the desire to furnish facilities for 
the education of a competent ministry. When theological 
instruction became separated from the college and uni¬ 
versity—in part as a result of the natural tendency to 
specialization, in larger part as a result of the growing 
secularization of all public education—it was supplied in 

271 


272 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 

special professional schools, sometimes affiliated with the 
university, more often entirely independent. To the ex¬ 
tent of this concern for the education of the ministry the 
number of theological schools and the funds invested in 
them bear convincing witness. Today in the United 
States, according to a survey now being completed by 
the Committee on Social and Religious Surveys and the 
Council of Church Boards of Education, there are 131 
Protestant seminaries, including those of all types. 1 Nine 
are theological departments in colleges or universities. 
Certainly we are not lacking in facilities for theological 
education. 

To study the work of these institutions in detail does 
not lie within the plan of the present report. Such a study 
is being made in the survey referred to and concrete illus¬ 
trations of the work done by different types of institu¬ 
tions are there given. We must confine ourselves here 
to certain general considerations which bear on the prob¬ 
lem of theological education as a whole. 

The seminaries differ so widely both in their ideals and 
in their methods that generalizations are difficult, if not 
impossible. Yet, viewing the situation as a whole, one 
may say that in their history they have clearly reflected 
the qualities which have characterized the religious life 
of America. The conception of Christianity inculcated 
has been the generally prevalent one and the existing 
denominational situation has been taken for granted. The 
prime responsibility of the seminary has been regarded 
as the training of men for the ministry of its own de¬ 
nomination. The curriculum has been simple and has 
varied little in the different schools. It has consisted of 
a knowledge of the languages of the Bible, exegesis, 
Church history, systematic theology, and practical the¬ 
ology. The prevailing beliefs in the denomination to 


1 This figure does not include seminaries exclusively for 
Negroes. Concerning these also a survey is now being made. 



EDUCATION FOR CHRISTIAN MINISTRY 273 

which the seminary belonged have been accepted with 
little question. When attention has been given to the 
teaching of other Churches it has been chiefly to point 
out errors and to illustrate by contrast with the more 
adequate theology of the teacher’s own denomination. 2 

Of the more than one hundred and thirty Protestant 
seminaries, the great majority are still under denomina¬ 
tional control. The method of their control varies widely 
in the different denominations, and even in different in¬ 
stitutions in the same denomination. In some cases con¬ 
trol remains in the hands of the ecclesiastical authorities, 
and the character of the teaching is required to conform 
closely to the official standards of the church. In other 
cases, even when the theoretical right of the ecclesiastical 
authorities to determine the character of the teaching is 
insisted upon, in practice the entire control of the school 
is committed to the boards of trustees of the several in¬ 
stitutions, which usually means that the instruction is 
determined by the judgment of the faculty and the pre¬ 
vailing opinion of that section of the Church in which 
the graduates are expected to work. 

In general it may be said that in the seminaries, as in 
the colleges and universities, the tendency has been to 
weaken denominational control and to give greater inde¬ 
pendence to the local authorities. This is true even of 
institutions of conservative character which pride them¬ 
selves upon their denominational orthodoxy. 

Besides the seminaries under denominational control 
are those, relatively few in number, which are completely 
independent, and which have definitely adopted the ideal 
of undenominational, or better interdenominational, as 
distinct from denominational theological education. These 
institutions are of two kinds. The first are the theological 
faculties of a few of the great universities, which treat 

2 One of the merits of Dr. Charles Hodge’s “Systematic The¬ 
ology” was that it gave a full account of the positions held by 
churches and schools different from that of the author. 



274 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 

religion as a subject of scientific research, like other sub¬ 
jects, prepare for the ministry as a profession as they 
prepare for law and medicine, are governed by the corpo¬ 
ration of the university and give degrees in theology on 
conditions exactly parallel to those which govern the giv¬ 
ing of degrees in other subjects. The others are autono¬ 
mous institutions owing their origin to private benevo¬ 
lence, and governed wholly by their own self-perpetuating 
Boards of Trustees. 3 In both kinds of institutions pro¬ 
vision is made for post-graduate instruction in theology 
and graduates of other seminaries are welcomed. This 
is also increasingly the case in the better denominational 
institutions. 

In practice it is not always easy to draw the line be¬ 
tween a denominational seminary and one that is unde¬ 
nominational or interdenominational in the latter sense. 
The increasing tendency toward freedom from ecclesiasti¬ 
cal control means that many even of the institutions in 
which there is a definite official connection with the de¬ 
nomination may, for all practical intents and purposes, 
be regarded as virtually independent. 

Besides the differences which result from denomina¬ 
tional history and traditions, there are differences which 
reflect differing theological attitudes and sympathies. 
These differences not only divide schools within the same 
denomination; they form points of contact between schools 
of different denominations. Each large denomination has 
its more liberal and its more conservative schools with 
the various shadings within each. In each case the sym¬ 
pathy that grows out of similar temperament and outlook 
reaches beyond denominational lines. 

“In the theological colleges connected with McGill and Toronto 
Universities, Canada, Union Theological Seminary in New York, 
for instance, we find an example of interdenominational control 
in the stricter sense, the several interested denominations having 
approved a plan by which much of the instruction is given in 


common. 



EDUCATION FOR CHRISTIAN MINISTRY 275 

Nevertheless, in spite of differences, denominational 
and theological, there are certain general factors which 
influence theological education as a whole. These factors 
we shall now briefly consider. We shall take up suc¬ 
cessively (1) the conditions affecting present-day theo¬ 
logical education; (2) the way in which the seminaries 
are meeting these conditions, and (3) certain desiderata 
for the future. 

2. Conditions Affecting Present-day Theological 
Education 

We have seen that in the past the prevailing temper 
of American theological education has been conservative. 
It has reflected and indeed stereotyped conditions in the 
denominations. The horizon in the different schools has 
been limited, the temper one of satisfaction with things 
as they are. Recently, however, certain new conditions 
have made themselves felt which have acted as a ferment 
in the theological world. These conditions are partly 
internal, the result of changing educational ideals, partly 
external, the effect of changes in the environment in 
which the minister must do his work. 

The change in educational ideal shows itself in an in¬ 
creasing emphasis upon the practical aspect of education, 
as a task affecting the whole man—will and emotion as 
well as intellect—with a corresponding emphasis upon 
practice and experiment. 

It is true that the prime motive for theological educa¬ 
tion in the past was practical. The pragmatism of Wil¬ 
liam James was anticipated in the theology of more than 
one of the Puritans who insisted that every doctrine of the 
theological system must be brought to the test of life. 
Nevertheless it cannot be denied that in fact this intimate 
contact has not been maintained. Doctrine has been di¬ 
vorced from the experience which it is designed to direct 
and interpret and conceived as a series of abstract propo¬ 
sitions to be received on authority whether they could be 


276 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 

verified in experience or not. This tendency has been 
reenforced by the disposition of Protestant theologians to 
confine God’s work of revelation to the past. It is true 
that the standards of all the Churches emphasize God’s 
presence in the world today and insist that the Bible be¬ 
comes revealing to the individual only when interpreted 
by the present Spirit. The fact remains that the Bible 
has been isolated from life and regarded as a law book 
to be received on authority irrespective of its verification 
in experience. Attention has been concentrated upon 
God’s dealings with the Prophets and the Apostles, or at 
most with the Fathers and with the Reformers. We 
have not made the present Church the subject of our 
study or had open ears to hear what God might be saying 
to us through His prophets of today. 

This excessive preoccupation with the past runs counter 
to present tendencies in education. We study the past 
that we may be fitted to live in the present and the future. 
But for this we must know the present as well as the 
past, and above all we must know ourselves as agents 
through which the lessons of the past are brought to bear 
on the present for the sake of the future. But the only 
way we can learn to know ourselves is to watch ourselves 
at work. Modern education therefore emphasizes the 
importance of practice as the test of theory, of experience 
as the key to knowledge, of whole values of life as a 
corrective of partial or inadequate conceptions. The 
seminaries in common with all other educational institu¬ 
tions are feeling the effects of this new spirit, and are 
modifying their practise in ways presently to be described. 

This new educational outlook is itself an effect of that 
far-reaching intellectual movement which we call modern 
science—a movement which has revolutionized our view 
of the physical universe, put into our hands undreamed¬ 
of powers over nature, and left no phase of our intel¬ 
lectual life untouched. The man who has felt the influ¬ 
ence of the scientific spirit thinks of the world as a whole, 


EDUCATION FOR CHRISTIAN MINISTRY 277 

of life in all its phases as developing according to law, 
and believes that the way to understand any part of it is 
by an impartial study of all the relevant facts in an atti¬ 
tude of faith. This new attitude has important conse¬ 
quence for theological study. 

For one thing it tends to break down the unquestioning 
acceptance of authority which was the atmosphere in 
which the older theological education took place; it sub¬ 
stitutes a critical and inquiring spirit for the old attitude 
of simple trust. This spirit is not confined to those who 
accept the conclusions of modern criticism. It is felt 
equally by those who reject these conclusions. The con¬ 
ditions to which they must address themselves are altered. 
The attitude of the men to whom their preaching is ad¬ 
dressed has changed. They ask a reason for what they 
were formerly expected to take on trust, a reason which 
shall be consistent with their beliefs in other departments 
of knowledge. The apologetic of the seminary must 
recognize this new attitude and be able to meet it. 

A second effect of the scientific movement is a great 
increase in specialization. As the field of our knowledge 
expands, the capacity of the individual to master it 
diminishes. If he is to have first-hand knowledge of 
anything, he must concentrate. So knowledge is broken 
up into compartments and the scholar chooses to which 
he will devote himself. The historian studies a period; 
the critic confines himself to a single problem. The com¬ 
prehensive view which the theory of science requires 
proves impracticable in fact and the narrowness of tradi¬ 
tional orthodoxy is succeeded by the narrowness of un¬ 
imaginative specialization. The old theology may have 
been inadequate in its philosophy. It was at least phi¬ 
losophy. The new science is in danger of dispensing with 
philosophy altogether. 

Paralleling these changes in mental attitude—in part 
their consequence, in part their cause—are changes in 
the environment in which the student must work. These 


278 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 

changes have been often described and we need not repeat 
the description here. They consist in a growing com¬ 
plexity in the conditions of life, a growing interde¬ 
pendence of individuals and of peoples, and at the same 
time an intensification of racial and class divisions, a 
growing sense of insecurity due to the rapid changes in 
economic conditions and the resulting instability in the 
status of the individual. These changes together consti¬ 
tute what is often called the Social Problem, and the 
attempt to bring the Spirit of Christ to bear upon them 
is known as the Social Gospel. 

These changes affect the life and work of the Church 
in important and perplexing ways and make correspond¬ 
ing demands upon those who are responsible for training 
the ministry. In the country we see a steady weakening 
of the churches through the diversion of the people to 
centers of urban industry. In the cities we find the 
massing of exceptional populations often of alien race and 
foreign speech with needs and problems of their own. 
As a result, we find an increasing number of rural 
churches which cannot afford to support a fully trained 
minister, side by side with an increasing demand from 
the cities for men who are specially trained to deal with 
the new problems which are arising. 

These conditions at home are paralleled by changes in 
the foreign field. Here, too, the demands made upon the 
missionary are increasing, while the difficulties which he 
faces grow pari passu. There is a growing demand for 
specially trained men and women to meet the new tasks, 
educational, economic, social, which the needs of the time 
are forcing upon the churches, and many foreign mis¬ 
sionaries welcome the opportunity their furlough presents 
to carry their study further than was possible under the 
simple curriculum of the older seminary. 

The difficulty of those who are responsible for the 
policy of our seminaries is further enhanced by the grow- 


EDUCATION FOR CHRISTIAN MINISTRY 279 

ing impatience of a considerable number of people in the 
churches with the slow methods which have been charac¬ 
teristic of our theological education in the past. It is 
not only that there are not enough fully trained ministers 
for the existing churches. The charge is made that the 
training given by the seminaries, conservative and liberal 
alike, is not practical. It fails to fit men for the work they 
have to do. The demand is for a shorter and more 
effective training, a training that will substitute practical 
acquaintance with the Bible for critical theories about it 
and use the time given to studying the Church in the past 
for teaching ministers how to preach the Gospel to the 
men of today. Bible institutes like those at Chicago and 
Los Angeles attract great numbers of students, and offer 
their graduates to the churches as substitutes for the 
ministers trained by the seminaries. With this dissatis¬ 
faction with the older seminaries goes often a theological 
conservatism which rejects criticism in all its forms and 
often—though by no means always—finds the key of 
Biblical interpretation in a premillenarian view of prophecy 
and a revived anticipation of the speedy visible advent 
of Christ. 

It is against the background of such facts that we 
must define the present task of theological education. Be¬ 
sides providing the requisite supply of ministers for the 
normal congregations, the seminaries are called upon to 
do four things: 

1. To make provision for a differentiated ministry to 
meet the new needs of different types of communities, 
such as our immigrant and industrial centers. 

2. To provide the best possible training for men who 
cannot afford time for the full theological course. 

3. To provide facilities for supplementing the inade¬ 
quate training of men now in the ministry. 

4. To train specialists who can deal adequately with 
the complex problems before the modem church. 


280 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 
3. How the Seminaries Are Facing the Situation 

What, then, are the seminaries doing to meet these new 
demands ? It is obvious that no single answer will fit all 
the facts. All that can be done is to call attention to 
certain significant changes and tendencies. 

One result has been to strengthen those seminaries 
which are located in or near great cities at the expense of 
those which are located in smaller communities. In the 
cities all the problems of our modern life come to a head. 
They are laboratories in which lawyers and doctors are 
trained for their professions; it is natural to conclude 
that they will prove equally adapted for the training of 
the ministry. Accordingly we see an increasing number 
of seminaries seeking sites in or near great cities and 
using the facilities which the city offers the individual 
through its churches and benevolent institutions for the 
practical training of their students. 

A second result has been to increase the number of 
seminaries which desire university connection. With the 
increasing demand upon the seminary for instruction in 
new subjects, it is impossible to meet the need from the 
resources of the institution itself. It is natural, therefore, 
to seek affiliation with the university which, from its 
ampler resources, can supplement the lack of the theologi¬ 
cal school. In some cases (as at Harvard and in the 
Canadian universities) groups of seminaries cooperate 
with one another in a single comprehensive scheme of 
theological education under the direction of the university 
and for its degrees. 

This tendency to concentrate in great centers and adopt 
university methods is, however, not universal. Some 
seminaries prefer the quiet which a less crowded life 
makes possible, and regard the greater leisure and con¬ 
sequently greater concentration as advantages which more 
than outweigh the disadvantages of their isolation. 

In some cases, we find seminaries (e.g. Bangor and 
Colgate) definitely concentrating upon the task of pre- 


EDUCATION FOR CHRISTIAN MINISTRY 281 


paring the man who cannot afford the time for a B. A. 
degree, providing a joint course in theology and the arts 
(as at Colgate and the Union Theological College at 
Chicago) or in theology alone (as at Bangor) which 
can be taken by men of high school grade. In view of 
the facts to which attention has already been called, this 
deliberate attempt to meet the needs of men without col¬ 
lege training is to be commended and it would be well if 
other institutions should follow the same example where 
the needs of their constituency seem to require it. 

With these various changes in aim and in relationship 
go corresponding changes in method such as the introduc¬ 
tion of new subjects into the curriculum, the provision of 
specialized training, the freer use of the principle of 
electives, and the use of practice or field work as part of 
the curriculum. 

One of the most obvious results of the new demands 
made upon the seminaries has been the addition to the 
older curriculum of a number of new subjects. Thus 
Christian ethics has been separated from systematic the¬ 
ology and made a department of its own. In not a few 
seminaries it is given its rightful place as dealing with the 
whole problem of bringing Christian motives and ideals to 
bear upon all our contemporary industrial, social, politi¬ 
cal, and international life. A group of new studies have 
differentiated themselves from the older apologetics. 
Among these comparative religion and the psychology of 
religion are the most important. The former supplements 
the detailed study of Christianity by an inquiry into the 
other great historic religions which are its rivals. The 
latter attempts to lay a foundation for the study of the 
Christian experience in an analysis of the psychological 
processes which characterize the religious life in general. 4 

4 Besides these new studies the older subjects of the curriculum 
are developing new aspects with a literature and interest of their 
own. Besides the exegesis of the Biblical books, we have Biblical 
Introduction, Biblical History, and Biblical Theology; in addition 
to Church History, the History of Doctrine and Symbolics. 



282 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 


Especially characteristic of the day is the introduction 
of new subjects dealing with the Church at work. Re¬ 
ligious education is gaining a significant place in the cur¬ 
riculum. Courses on this subject are designed not only 
to give the minister acquaintance with modern educational 
theory and practise, but to furnish him with technical in¬ 
formation as to the methods and organization of the 
Church’s educational agencies in such a way as to fit 
him for practical leadership in this most important and 
responsible part of the Church’s work. Foreign missions 
have been made a subject of intensive study, and students 
while still in the seminary receive instruction in the ways 
in which through the rising Churches in other lands a 
Christian civilization can be built up throughout the world. 
In some seminaries similar detailed instruction is given 
in the more technical problems of home missions, such as 
immigrant groups, industrial centers, and the country 
church. The relation of the church to all the forces of 
social betterment in the community is also studied. 

A result of this multiplication of studies is such a 
crowding of the curriculum that it is impossible for any 
student to cover all the subjects offered in the time at his 
disposal. Recourse is necessary to the principle of elec¬ 
tives and the student finds himself obliged to choose be¬ 
tween a multitude of conflicting courses. Under the 
pressure of new subjects the temptation is offered either 
to curtail the time given to the older studies or to omit 
some of them altogether. The pressure is particularly 
severe in the linguistic group which used to form the 
basis of the required curriculum. Many seminaries no 
longer require Hebrew of their students and in not a 
few cases Greek also has become an elective. 

With increase in the number of electives we find an 
increased tendency to specialization. Specialization has 
long been applied to the more technical and academic 
studies of the curriculum. It is now making itself felt 
on the practical side. The differentiation of the task is 


EDUCATION FOR CHRISTIAN MINISTRY 283 

met by differentiated courses. Besides the group of 
studies which fit men for the ordinary pastorate, provision 
is made for those looking forward to the foreign field, to 
social and philanthropic work, and to religious education 
in the technical sense. This provision, to be sure, has 
not gone far and is not without its dangers, but it is at 
least a serious attempt to face the real conditions which 
the modern minister must meet. In this connection men¬ 
tion should be made of the summer schools which are 
being held for home mission workers and others engaged 
in special forms of work, in which technical problems are 
discussed with a fulness not possible in the seminary. 

Of special significance for the training of the ministry 
is the attempt now being made to correlate the theoretical 
work in the classroom with the practical work done by the 
students in churches, Sunday School, and social agencies. 
In a few seminaries this work is carefully supervised and 
credit is given for it in the curriculum. Tht student is 
required to discuss his work with his instructor and 
through group discussion of problems and methods ac¬ 
quires a more intelligent understanding of his objective 
and the way to be taken to reach it in the midst of the 
conditions confronting him in the community. 

Such are some of the methods which have been taken 
by some of the seminaries to meet the new demands which 
are being made upon them. It goes without saying that 
they are being used in very different degrees and that in 
many seminaries the old curriculum is still maintained 
practically unchanged. Nevertheless it can be said with¬ 
out fear of contradiction that a new spirit is abroad in 
theological education—a spirit which is full of promise 
for the future. 

One indication of this new spirit is the growing sym¬ 
pathy between theological teachers of different denomina¬ 
tions and schools of thought. We have spoken of the 
disposition of the seminaries to broaden their horizon 
and to think of the church as including other denomina- 


284 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 

tions than their own. This disposition appears in the 
willingness to receive students of different denominations 
and to provide instruction suited to their needs. In many 
of the larger seminaries students of different denomina¬ 
tions are studying side by side. This is true not only of 
university departments and independent seminaries but 
of not a few which are under denominational control. 
More significant still is the inclusion of representatives of 
different communions in the same faculty—a practice 
which has proved entirely practicable and successful. 

Outward and visible expression of the growing spirit 
of unity was furnished by the formation in 1918 of the 
Conference of Theological Seminaries—a gathering of 
teachers of different theological schools which meets 
every two years. At the first meeting held at Harvard 
at the invitation of President Lowell, more than fifty in¬ 
stitutions were represented. Subsequent meetings with 
wide representation have been held at Princeton and 
Toronto. In this Conference teachers of different de¬ 
nominations widely separated in theological and ecclesi¬ 
astical faith gather for friendly discussion of their com¬ 
mon problems. A continuation committee meets in the 
interim and other committees are conducting investigations 
which will be for the mutual advantage of all concerned. 
Thus for the first time the theological teachers of the 
country have formed an organization for common ex¬ 
pression through which they can not only exchange opinion 
but address themselves in an effective way to those larger 
problems and tasks which concern them all alike. What 
some of these are it remains to inquire. 

4. Desiderata for the Future 

One of the chief difficulties in the existing situation 
in theological education, as in the entire field of religious 
education, is that we are all so busy trying to do our 
own particular part of the work that we have little time 


EDUCATION FOR CHRISTIAN MINISTRY 285 

and leisure to consider that work in its larger setting as 
part of the educational task of the Church as a whole. 
Again and again in the course of this report we have been 
reminded of our need of a unified program. We need 
such a program in the local church. We need it in each 
denomination. We need it in the Church as a whole. 
Only in the light of such a comprehensive program can 
the task of training the Church’s ministry be seen in its 
true perspective. 

In what follows we shall try first to define this task 
in its main outlines; secondly, to suggest certain things 
which can and should be done by those who are engaged 
in theological education, and, thirdly, to point out certain 
things for which the cooperation of others through the 
university and the Church is necessary. 

And first of the task. Primary among our desiderata 
is a clearer definition of our objective. If we are to 
teach successfully we must know whom and for what. 
Here differentiation is needed. Provision must be made 
for the needs of at least five kinds of students. 

First, the minister who is looking forward to the 
service of the normal church and who must remain in 
the future, as in the past, the central object of seminary 
training. 

Secondly, the man who cannot afford time or money 
for a full college and seminary course but who will be 
needed in increasing numbers for various phases of 
church work as assistant and lay worker. 

Thirdly, the man looking forward to a specialized task 
for which technical training is needed (e.g. the foreign 
field, some form of home service such as immigrant or 
country church work, social or philanthropic work, 
Y.M.C.A. and Y.W.C.A. work, religious education, etc.). 

Fourthly, the man preparing for teaching or research 
in the different branches of theological education. 

Fifthly, the man in the ministry who needs to supple¬ 
ment his earlier education and to be kept in touch with 


286 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 


new developments in the field of Christian thought and 
work. 

These men have some needs which can be met in com¬ 
mon, others for which special provision must be made 
through differentiated training. We have seen that the 
beginning of such differentiation is already taking place. 
We need to consider whether it does not need to be car¬ 
ried further, and if so, how far this can be done. 

At least three kinds of institutions seem clearly needed: 

(a) The ordinary seminary whose primary function it 

is to train ministers for service in the pastorate. 

(b) The seminary of university grade which adds to 

its normal course post-graduate training in the 
various specialized forms of work. 

(c) The training school for men without college train¬ 

ing who are fitting themselves for work in which 
technical linguistic and historical training is not 
essential. 

The three types of training need not, of course, be 
provided in separate institutions. Two or more may be 
combined in a single institution, but it is important to 
recognize clearly the distinct needs for which provision 
must be made. 

One of the primary needs of the situation is an exami¬ 
nation of our existing institutions, in the light of these 
different needs, with a view to a clearer differentiation of 
their function, the removal of needless competition or 
duplication, and the provision of such additional institu¬ 
tional facilities as seem required. In other words, what 
is needed is not only specialization within theological in¬ 
stitutions but specialization among them. Is there any 
valid reason why one hundred and thirty-odd seminaries 
should all undertake to cover the whole range of training 
for all the various types of ministry? To do so would 
obviously make for inefficiency. The great majority of 
our schools have nothing like the resources necessary to 
provide thorough training for all phases of the many- 


EDUCATION FOR CHRISTIAN MINISTRY 287 
sided work. Why should they try to do so ? In university 

T* ' "4 

education the method of differentiation has proved both 
practicable and advantageous. While there are a few in¬ 
stitutions with resources great enough to offer competent 
instruction in almost every field of modern knowledge, the 
large majority make their distinctive contribution by 
offering, in addition to the few subjects basic to all educa¬ 
tion, special facilities for training in certain fields, engi¬ 
neering—electrical, mechanical, civil, mining—or agricul¬ 
ture, or business, or the fine arts, or some of the many 
other fields. Why should not our theological seminaries, 
to some extent at least, do likewise? To bring about an 
agreement which would make this practicable is con¬ 
fessedly difficult, in the existing denominational situa¬ 
tion, but first steps at least can be taken in this direction. 

Here is an institution, for example, located in a great 
metropolis, offering every conceivable type of urban insti¬ 
tutional work. Here is another situated in a small town, 
presenting unique facilities for dealing at first hand with 
the rural church. Why should both schools undertake 
to devote equal energy to the problems of both the rural 
and of the city ministry? Here is another institution, 
which, by virtue of its location near foreign mission 
headquarters and a great university which provides 
courses on the history, literature, and language of Oriental 
lands, has unusual opportunities as a school for foreign 
service for prospective missionaries or missionaries on 
furlough. There is no need for many such institutions; 
there is a tremendous need for a few of the highest grade. 
Why not concentrate effort and money in providing the 
best possible training in the institutions that are best 
equipped to furnish it? 

The adoption of a definite policy of specialization would 
make it possible to deal effectively with the problem of 
men who are entering the ministry without a thorough 
preparation. From such evidence as is available, it is 
probably not beyond the facts to say that not half of the 


288 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 


present ministry have had both a full college and seminary 
course. Large numbers have had neither. These men, 
as we have seen, have generally had a brief period of 
training in one of the “Bible Institutes,” originally de¬ 
signed for the training of lay workers but now sending 
many of their men into the ministry. Their teachers 
are often strongly prejudiced both against the modern 
view of the Bible and the emphasis on the social applica¬ 
tion of the Gospel. In not a few cases they attack the 
progressive institutions with higher intellectual standards 
as enemies of the faith. The only way to offset these 
influences is for the seminaries themselves to make pro¬ 
vision for the training of the men who are going to 
enter the ministry without the normal period of prepara¬ 
tion. Deeply as we deplore the cutting short of the 
full college course as a prerequisite to theological training, 
we have to face the fact that so long as this is being done 
the path of wisdom is to provide opportunities for such 
men to get the broadest and most effective training pos¬ 
sible instead of leaving them no other alternative than 
to go to the “Bible Institutes.” 

There are two possible ways in which this problem 
could be solved. Some of our existing seminaries could 
be equipped with facilities for carrying on this task on a 
larger scale and could concentrate upon it, or new institu¬ 
tions could be established for the purpose. The latter 
would be possible on an adequate scale only if a part of 
the funds now directed to the higher education of the 
ministry were diverted to this purpose and the gap filled 
by the consolidation of existing institutions. But if our 
seminaries are to justify the large sums spent upon them, 
something of the sort must be done. Such institutions 
might well provide specialized training for lay workers, a 
field of which the Bible Institutes with a few exceptions 
(e.g. the deaconesses’ schools and a few other institutions 
of similar character) now have a practical monopoly. 
Certainly our present provision for the training of lay 


EDUCATION FOR CHRISTIAN MINISTRY 289 

workers is all but negligible in comparison with the great¬ 
ness of the opportunity. 

Special provision needs to be made also by some of the 
seminaries, in accordance with some plan agreed upon by 
all, for furnishing opportunity for continued serious study 
and intellectual stimulus for men already in the ministry. 
After a few years in the active ministry men come to 
see the problems on which they need further help and 
guidance for the sake of their practical work as they may 
not have seen them before. The summer schools now 
being held by a few of the seminaries are a valuable step 
in the direction of meeting this need. But they are quite 
inadequate. The present offerings reach only a compara¬ 
tively small number and often leave untouched those who 
most need the stimulus which such study gives. Such 
schools need to be distributed in the different sections of 
the country according to a systematic plan. Indeed to 
deal with the situation on an adequate scale, it will prob¬ 
ably be necessary for the educational and missionary 
authorities of the several denominations to cooperate with 
the seminaries in some nation-wide plan of extension work 
which will make available to all definite facilities for con¬ 
tinued help and guidance. 5 

Within each of the seminaries, likewise, as well as 
in their relations to one another, there is need for dealing 
with ministerial education as a unified whole. Today, 
when a new need must be met, the natural way to meet it 
is to provide a new course or courses. This is good so 
far as it goes, but it does not meet the real difficulty, and 
this for two reasons. 

In the first place, the multiplication of courses tends 
either to make men superficial or one-sided. Either they 

8 The Board of Home Missions of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church has been developing a plan of cooperation with some of 
the Methodist seminaries in holding summer schools, but this is 
only a small beginning of what needs to be done in each demoni- 
nation or preferably by the denominations cooperatively. 



290 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 

add the new to the old, and do the old less thoroughly; or 
they omit some part of the old to make room for the 
new. Every teacher who has followed with open eyes 
the educational development of the last generation realizes 
this difficulty. He finds himself between Scylla and Cha- 
rybdis and is often at a loss to decide which danger is 
the most to be deprecated. Whatever form of ministry 
a man is looking forward to, there are certain basic sub¬ 
jects he needs to know. He must know his Bible, the 
religion it portrays, the Gospel it proclaims, the work that 
Christ’s Spirit has done and is doing in the world and the 
institution through which that Spirit functions. To be 
ignorant of any of these or to know them superficially is 
to invite disaster. But to gain such knowledge, and do the 
new things men are asked to do, seems impossible. New 
courses will not help us, or only in smallest measure. 

What is needed is a new orientation of the entire 
course: the teaching of the old subjects, exegesis, history, 
theology, and the like, in the light of the new tasks and 
problems the student is going out to face. Such a new 
orientation cannot be brought about by any mere external 
modification of the curriculum. It requires a new point 
of view on the part of the faculty as a whole. Each man 
must conceive his own work in the light of the present 
needs of his students. Each must see the special thing 
he is doing as a part of the larger whole. Instead of 
thinking of religious education simply as a new depart¬ 
ment added to others, each faculty should constitute itself 
a department of religious education for the purpose of 
studying together conditions in the present Church, and 
ways of meeting them, and shaping their instruction of 
the student accordingly. 

Such a changed viewpoint would affect theological 
teaching in two ways. In the first place, it would give 
greater reality to the study of the Bible and Church his¬ 
tory because they would be studied in the light of present- 


EDUCATION FOR CHRISTIAN MINISTRY 291 

day problems and needs. In the second place, it would 
give greater breadth and balance to the teaching of the¬ 
ology because it would require sympathetic treatment of 
the beliefs and practices of other branches of the church 
than the student’s own and especially of those cooperative 
movements through which the unity of Christian faith 
and life is finding expression in the world today. 

This does not mean that the languages and the other 
traditional subjects of theological study will not retain 
their place in the curriculum. What we are urging is 
that they should be regarded as means and not as ends. 
We need to rethink the whole problem of education for 
the ministry and see that its character is determined not 
by inherited traditions but by the direct inquiry as to 
how we can best train men for the practical task of apply¬ 
ing Christianity to our complex and many-sided life. We 
are urging that teachers and scholars alike should do their 
work in the light of the task which they are to accomplish 
in the world, that they should come to understand what 
the Christian life means in the actual world of today, and 
they should be given a better idea of the use that is to 
be made of the different kinds of knowledge they are gain¬ 
ing. We must, in a word, regard the seminary as first of 
all a training- school. It is not primarily a place for mak¬ 
ing technical experts in Biblical languages and literature, 
history, or philosophy, though the seminary that is worthy 
of its task will do this also, but for fitting men to go out 
into the midst of modern social life as pastors, preachers, 
teachers, organizers, for the sake of building the Kingdom 
of God on the earth. 

What if, to take a single example, we should approach 
the question of education for the ministry from the stand¬ 
point of winning the polyglot industrial population of our 
great cities to the Christian Church? Do we seriously 
think that we would require the study of Hebrew as a 
necessary qualification—to the exclusion of lines of study 
that would help the student to understand the daily life of 


292 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 

these foreign-born people and to approach them on the side 
of their conscious needs? Does it not seem reasonable 
that some of our prospective ministers should devote to 
the learning of the Italian tongue the time they would 
otherwise spend in learning Hebrew ? 

Or suppose we should direct the research, to which our 
theological institutions are now rightly giving new em¬ 
phasis, not only to finding out what happened two or three 
thousand years ago in Palestine but to what is happening 
today in social and international realms on which we must 
bring the teaching of our Lord to bear ? 

Especially important, in the light of the unique im¬ 
portance which we have attached in this study to the 
teaching function of the Church, is a more serious atten¬ 
tion to the training of the men in the seminaries for a 
truly educational ministry. To do this will mean at least 
two things. The first is to provide for all students the 
basic courses essential for an understanding of what is 
involved in the task of educating people in religion. We 
shall never have a teaching Church until we have a gen¬ 
eration of ministers who are qualified to give leadership to 
their parishes in religious education, at least to the extent 
of really knowing how to set to work to develop an educa¬ 
tional program. Happily, as we have seen, the seminaries 
are beginning to increase both the quantity and quality of 
instruction in this subject, although most of them still 
have a long way to go. The second task is to give to 
certain men a genuinely professional training in religious 
education so that these may be thoroughly equipped for 
the more specialized tasks in the educational field, as 
directors of religious education in local parishes, as of¬ 
ficials in the many agencies of religious education, denom¬ 
inational and interdenominational, as teachers of religious 
education in colleges and seminaries. This will require in 
some schools, at least, fully manned departments of re¬ 
ligious education, including provision for graduate work 


EDUCATION FOR CHRISTIAN MINISTRY 293 

and research, second to no other department in the 
seminary. 

Such a readjustment of viewpoint and method as we 
have been suggesting will not be easy, for it will involve 
leaving a field where literature is abundant and precedents 
are many for one in which there is as yet little consensus 
of opinion and methods need to be worked out experi¬ 
mentally, as we grow better acquainted with the task. 
But this is not a reason for shirking the attempt or turn¬ 
ing it over to others less equipped with historic knowledge 
and perspective, but for attacking it with all possible 
courage and thoroughness. 

As a result of the new emphasis on scientific and 
scholarly study in the seminary we now have a wealth 
of useful monographs in various fields of religious knowl¬ 
edge. But these volumes have been written almost ex¬ 
clusively on the familiar subjects of the older curriculum 
—the criticism and interpretation of the Bible, Church 
history, theology and the like. Has not the time come 
to give similar attention to the practical problems before 
the Church today as they meet us on the foreign field, in 
the rural community, in our civic life, in the industrial 
areas of our great cities, in the places where race and 
race or nation and nation meet so sharply side by side 
as to challenge the Church whether it can make its Gospel 
of brotherhood a present reality. To whom should we 
look for help in our efforts to solve these problems if not 
to the teachers in our theological seminaries ? Who 
should take the lead in organizing the research that is 
necessary for our guidance, if not they? What work 
could they do which would do more to give reality and 
interest to their own teaching? 

But for this there must be cooperation on a far wider 
scale than we have had in the past: cooperation between 
the faculties of different theological institutions; coopera¬ 
tion between teachers of theology as a class with teachers 


294 THE TEACHING WORK OF THE CHURCH 

in other institutions; cooperation, finally, with the leaders 
of the Churches. 

Cooperation between the faculties of different institu¬ 
tions is needed not only for the more intelligent distribu¬ 
tion of work between the different institutions, but for 
the study of common needs, the provision of needed tools, 
and above all the exchange of experience. Such coopera¬ 
tion should take place not only between teachers of dif¬ 
ferent denominations but, what is even more important, 
between teachers of different theological convictions and 
sympathies. What is needed is not the surrender of con¬ 
viction but intelligent understanding of the convictions of 
those who differ, in order that in spite of differences, a 
common platform may be found on which men may stand 
to proclaim the Christian Gospel and bring it to bear on 
every phase of human life. 

Cooperation is needed with the faculties of our univer¬ 
sities and colleges partly for the purpose of securing better 
preparation for theological students in the things they 
need to know; partly for securing the interest of the col¬ 
leges in furnishing the necessary religious teaching for 
students who are not looking forward to the ministry, 
but who as laymen and laywomen should be active workers 
in the Christian Church; but above all, for a common 
approach to those intellectual problems which lie on the 
border-land between the seminary and the university and 
which neither can solve successfully without the help of 
the other. We have in mind the whole realm of applied 
Christianity—the field in which psychology, sociology, and 
economics must supply data, without which the Christian 
minister cannot intelligently discharge his responsibility 
to society. There are Christian men in the faculties of 
our universities who have much to teach us in this field, 
if only we can define our problem in such a way as to 
secure their most effective cooperation. 

Finally, cooperation is needed with the leaders of the 
Churches from which our students come and which they 


EDUCATION FOR CHRISTIAN MINISTRY 295 

are designed to serve. We need such cooperation to 
secure the most effective use of our existing educational 
facilities. We need it to secure such new facilities as our 
new definition of the task may require. We need it to 
increase the number of men now in the ministry who de¬ 
sire to continue their theological studies after graduation 
and to secure conditions such as to make those studies 
possible. Above all, we need it to unify the thinking 
of the Church in the central problems which concern us 
all alike. Only when those who are leading the practical 
work of the Church see eye to eye with those who are 
training its teachers, can we hope to have the conditions 
we desire in the Church. Only when our seminaries do 
their work with a vivid consciousness of conditions in the 
Church and in the world in which the Church is set, can 
they turn out the kind of ministers we need. 

We end where we began—on the unity of the Church’s 
educational task. No part of it can be isolated from the 
others. The higher we climb in the educational scale, the 
more clearly we see the interdependence of each part of 
the Church’s teaching work with all the others. The call 
of the hour is for a more adequate and a more unified 
educational program for the Church as a whole. 































" 













CLASSIFIED BIBLIOGRAPHY 


The following suggestions of literature dealing with the 
field covered in this volume make no pretense of being 
exhaustive. They aim only to indicate some of the more 
useful sources for further study of the various subjects. 

Part I. 

Athearn, W. S., Religious Education and Ameri¬ 
can Democracy. Boston, 1917. 

Betts, G. H., The New Program of Religious Edu¬ 
cation, New York, 1921. 

Bower, W. C., The Educational Task of the Local 
Church, St. Louis, 1921. 

Brown, A. A., A History of Religious Education 
in Recent Times, New York, 1923. 

Brown, S. W., The Secularization of American 
Education, Columbia University, New York, 
1912. 

Burns, J. A., The Growth and Development of the 
Catholic School System in the United States, 
New York, 1912. 

Burns, J. A., Catholic Education, New York, 1917. 

Bushnell, Horace, Christian Nurture. Revised edi¬ 
tion, New York, 1917. 

Coe, G. A., A Social Theory of Religious Educa¬ 
tion, New York, 1917. 

Cope, H. F., Religious Education in the Church, 
New York, 1918. 

Cope, H. F., Education for Democracy, New York, 
1920. 

Cubberley, E. P., Public Education in the United 
States, Boston, 1919. 

Dewey, J., Democracy and Education, New York, 
1916. 

Dewey, J. and E., Schools of Tomorrow, New 
York, 1916. 


297 


CLASSIFIED BIBLIOGRAPHY 


McGiffert, A. C., A Teaching Church, Religious 
Education, Feb. 1921. 

Religion Among American Men. Committee on 
the War and the Religious Outlook, Chapter 
VIII, New York, 1920. 

Winchester, B. S., Religious Education in a 
Democracy, New York, 1917. 


Part II. 

(a) On Principles Underlying the Curriculum 

(See also references under Part I) 

Betts, G. H., How to Teach Religion, New York, 
1919. 

Bobbitt, J. F., The Curriculum, New York, 1918. 

Bower, W. C., A Suggestive Approach to the Re¬ 
construction of the Curriculum of the School of 
Religion, Religious Education XII; 231. 

Charters, W. W., Curriculum Construction, New 
York. 

Coe, G. A., Opposing Theories of the Curriculum, 
Religious Education, April, 1922. 

Meriam, J. L., Child Life and the Curriculum, 
New York, 1921. 

Miller, I. E., Education for the Needs of Life, 
New York, 1919. 

Sharp, F. C., Education for Character, Indianap¬ 
olis, 1917. 

(b) On Special Methods and Problems 

(See also references under Part III a) 

Galloway, T. W., The Use of Motives in Teaching 
Morals and Religion, Boston, 1917. 

Hartshorne, H., Worship in the Sunday School, 
New York, 1913. 

Kilpatrick, W. H., The Project Method. New 
York, 1918. 

McMurry, C. A., Teaching by Projects. New 
York, 1920. 

Meredith, W. V., Pageantry and Dramatics in 
Religious Education, New York, 1921. 


I 


CLASSIFIED BIBLIOGRAPHY 299 

Richardson, N. E., The Church at Play, New York, 
1922. 

Stevenson, J. A., The Project Method of Teaching, 
New York, 1921. 

Weigle, L. A., and Tweedy, H. H., Training the 
Devotional Life, New York, 1917. 

(c) On the Various Age Groups 

Betts, Anna F., The Mother-Teacher of Religion, 
New York, 1922. 

Cope, H. F., Religious Education in the Family, 
Chicago, 1915. 

Hartshorne, H., Childhood and Character, Boston, 
1919 - 

King, I., The Psychology of Childhood, Chicago, 
1920. 

Kirkpatrick, E. A., The Individual in the Making, 
Boston, 1911. 

Lynch, Ella F., Bookless Lessons for the Teacher 
Mother, New York, 1922. 

Mumford, E. E. R., The Dawn of Religion in the 
Mind of a Child, New York, 1915. 

Norsworthy and Whitley, Psychology of Child¬ 
hood, New York, 1921. 

St. John, E. P., Child Nature and Child Nurture, 
Boston, 1911. 

Weigle, L. A., The Training of Children in the 
Christian Family, Boston, 1922. 

Forbush, W. B., The Boy Problem, Boston, 1907. 

Moxcey, Mary E., Girlhood and Character, New 
York, 1916. 

King, I., The High School Age, Indianapolis, 1914. 

Shaver, E. L., Teaching Adolescents in the Church 
School, New York, 1923. 

Thompson, James V., Handbooks for Workers 
with Young People, New York, 1922. 

(d) On the Education of Public Opinion 

Batten, S. Z., The Church as the Maker of Con¬ 
science, Amer. Jour, of Soc., Vol. VII: 611. 

Brown, W. A., The Church in America, New York, 
1922, pp. 295-302. 


300 


CLASSIFIED BIBLIOGRAPHY 


Ellwood, C. A., The Reconstruction of Religion, 
New York, 1922. Especially Chap. XI. 

Lippman, W., Public Opinion, New York, 1922. 

Lowell, A. L., Public Opinion in War and Peace, 
Cambridge, Mass., 1923. 

McConnell, F. J., The Preacher and the People, 
New York, 1922. 

Public Opinion and the Steel Strike. By the Com¬ 
mission on Inquiry of the Interchurch World 
Movement, New York, 1921. 

Rauschenbusch, Christianizing the Social Order, 
New York, 1912. 

Ross, E. A., Social Psychology, New York, 1908. 

The Church and Industrial Reconstruction, By the 
Committee on the War and the Religious Out¬ 
look, Chapter VIII, New York, 1920. 

Part III. 

(a) On Organization and Methods of Religious Education 
(See also references under Part II b) 

Athearn, W. S., The Church School, Boston, 1914. 

Beard, Frederica, Graded Missionary Education in 
the Church School, Philadelphia, 1917. 

Cope, H. F., Organizing the Church School, New 
York, 1923. 

The School in the Modern Church, New 
York, 1919. 

The Week Day Church School, New York, 
1921. 

Diffendorfer, R. E., Missionary Education in Home 
and School, New York, 1917. 

Gage, A. H., How to Conduct a Church Vacation 
School, Philadelphia, 1921. 

Hutchins, W. N., Graded Social Service for the 
Sunday School, Chicago, 1914. 

Lobingier, J. L., World Friendship through the 
Church School, Chicago, 1923. 

Meyer, H. H., The Graded Sunday School in Prin¬ 
ciple and Practice, New York, 1910. 

Rice, E. W., The Sunday School Movement and 
the American Sunday School Union, Philadel¬ 
phia, 1917. 


CLASSIFIED BIBLIOGRAPHY 301 

Richardson and Loomis, The Boy Scout Move¬ 
ment Applied by the Church, New York, 1915. 
Sampey, J. R., The International Lesson System, 
New York, 1911. 

Squires, W. A., The Week Day Church School, 
Philadelphia, 1921. 

Stafford, H. S., The Vacation Religious Day 
School, New York, 1920. 

Stout, J. E., The Organization and Administration 
of Religious Education, New York, 1922. 

Stout and Thompson, The Daily Vacation Church 
School, New York, 1923. 

Week Day Religious Education: A Survey and 
Discussion of Activities and Problems, Edited by 
H. F. Cope, New York, 1922. 

See also the various series of Graded Lesson 
Texts for the Sunday School, courses of study for 
week day and daily vacation Bible schools and 
teacher training courses. 

See also the manuals for the Citizenship Train¬ 
ing Program (Y. M. C. A.) the Girl Reserves 
(Y. W. C. A.) Boy Scouts of America, Girl 
Scouts, Camp Fire Girls, Woodcraft League, etc. 

(b) On the Coordination of Programs. 

Athearn, W. S., Religious Education and American 
Democracy, Chapter III, Boston, 1917. 

Blashfield, H. W., Young People and the Church 
School, Religious Education, April, 1920. 

Bower, W. C., The Educational Task of the Local 
Church, Chapter III, St. Louis, 1921. 

Coe, G. A., A General View of the Movement for 
Correlating Religious Education with Public 
Instruction, Religious Education XI, 109. 
Community Programs for Cooperating Churches, 
R. B. Guild, Editor, Chapter V, New York, 1920. 
Cope, H. F., The School in the Modern Church, 
Chapters IV, VIII, XII, New York, 1919. 
Lobingier, J. L., What Shall We Do With the 
Young People in Religious Education, June, 
1920. 

What Provision Should Be Made for the Better 
Coordination of Agencies. A series of articles 


302 


CLASSIFIED BIBLIOGRAPHY 


by S. M. Cavert, Mabel Head, R. L. Kelly, and 
F. M. Sheldon, Religious Education, June, 
1923 - 

Winchester, B. S., Correlation of the Week Day 
Curriculum and the Sunday School Curriculum, 
Religious Education, Oct., 1922. 

Wood, C. A., School and College Credit for Out¬ 
side Bible Study, Yonkers, 1917. 


Part IV. 

(a) On the College and University 

Athearn, W. S., Religious Education and Ameri¬ 
can Democracy, Chapters V and VI, Boston, 
1917. 

Beam, L., The College and the Theological Sem¬ 
inary Association of American Colleges Bulletin, 
Vol. IX, pp. 244-263. 

Braden, S. R., Cooperative Biblical Teaching for 
Credit at the University of Missouri, Christian 
Education, Vol. VI; 481. 

Brown, A. A., A History of Religious Education 
in Recent Times, Chapter IX, New York, 192 

Brown, B. W., A Statistical Survey of Illinois Col¬ 
leges, The American College Bulletin, March, 
1917 - 

Brown, W. A., The Responsibility of the Univer¬ 
sity for the Teaching of Religion, Yale Divinity 
Quarterly, June, 1920. 

The Church in America, New York, 1922, 
pp . 308-317. 

Burton, E. D., Religious Education in the Colleges, 
Association of American Colleges Bulletin, Vol. 
IX, pp. 223-229. 

Chapin, C. B., Should the Bible be a Required or 
an Elective Study in Our Colleges, Christian 
Education, VI: 93. 

Coe, G. A., Policies for College Instruction in Re¬ 
ligious Education, Religious Education, June, 
1920. 

Foster, O. D., Schools of Religion at State Uni¬ 
versities, Christian Education, Vol. V: 183. 


CLASSIFIED BIBLIOGRAPHY 


303 


Foster, O. D., Canadian Theological Colleges and 
American Schools of Religion, Christian Edu¬ 
cation, Vol. V; 281. 

Some Glimpses of Trans-Mississippi Uni¬ 
versities, VI, 489. 

Humphreys, W. R., The University of Michigan 
Courses in Biblical Literature, Christian Educa¬ 
tion, VI; 109. 

Kelly, R. L., The Place and Function of the Chris¬ 
tian College, Christian Education, Vol. V; 177. 

The Field and Future of the Christian Col¬ 
lege, Christian Education, Vol. VI; 297. 

The Relation of Biblical Departments to the 
Curricula of Liberal Colleges, Christian 
Education, Vol. VI; 205. 

Lampe, M. W., University Policy of the Presbyte¬ 
rian Church, U. S. A.; Christian Education, 
Vol. V; 236. 

Micou, P., The Church’s Inquiry into Student Re¬ 
ligious Life, Church Missions House, New York, 

x 9 2 3- 

Munro, H. C., Religious Education at State Uni¬ 
versities, Christian Education, Vol. VI; 471. 

Report of Commission on Religious Education in 
Colleges, Religious Education, Dec., 1921. 

Sweets, H. H., The Religious Culture of the Stu¬ 
dents in Our Colleges, Christian Education, 
Vol. VI; 288. 

Wild, L. H., The Status of Religious Education in 
Our Colleges, Christian Education, Vol. VI; 

75- 

Standardization of Biblical Departments in 
Colleges, Religious Education, Vol. XII; 
139- 

(b) On the Theological Seminary 

Brown, W. A., The Church in America, Part V, 
New York, 1922. 

Theological Education, Monroe’s Cyclopedia of 
Education, Vol. V, New York, 1914. 

Education for Christian Service, by Members of 
the Faculty of the Divinity School of Yale Uni¬ 
versity, New Haven, 1922. 


304 


CLASSIFIED BIBLIOGRAPHY 


Mathews, S., Vocational Efficiency and the Theo¬ 
logical Curriculum, American Journal of Theol¬ 
ogy, April, 1912. 

McGiffert, A. C., Theological Education, American 
Journal of Theology, Jan., 1911. 

Mackenzie, W. D., Standardization of Theological 
Education, Religious Education, Aug., 1911. 

Robins, H. B., Reorganization of the Theological 
Seminary in the Light of the Needs of Today, 
Religious Education, Feb., 1920. 

Theological Education in America, A Survey of 
Protestant Theological Seminaries in the United 
States and Canada (In Press), George H. 
Doran Co., New York. 

The Seminary and the Seminary Man, A series of 
papers in Christian Education, October, 1923. 

Year books of the various denominations and cata¬ 
logues of the different seminaries. 


INDEX 


Activity as an element in 
teaching, 31-32, 100-101, 186 
Adolescence, religious educa¬ 
tion during early, 89-98 
Adolescence, religious educa¬ 
tion during late, 98-107 
Adult education in religion, 44, 
50-53, 108-123, 164-167 
Agencies of religious education, 
I4S-I75 

American Sunday School 
Union, 209, 210-212 
Association of Biblical in¬ 
structions, 223, 243 

Bangor Theological Seminary, 
280 

Baptist work in universities, 
258, 262-263 

Baptist Young People’s Union, 
149, 219 

Bible in religious education. 
(See also Old Testament, 
Jesus, etc.) 30-31, 64 
Bible Institutes, 279, 287-288 
Bible study in colleges, 221, 268 
Biblical Teaching in Colleges, 
238, 242-246, 252, 269 
Birge, E. A., quoted, 254, 265 
Blashfield, H. W., quoted, 153 
Boards, denominational, 205- 
209, 221 

Boy Scouts. (See Scout or¬ 
ganizations) 

Brown, E. E., quoted, 233 
Brown, S. W., quoted, 12 
Brown, W. A., referred to, 
vii, 138 

Bushnell, Horace, quoted, 46 

California, Court Decision on 
Bible, 19 

California, University of, 266 
Campfire Girls, 168, 172-173, 
202, 210, 220-221 


Canada, Christian Citizenship 
program in, 171 

Catechetical instruction, 29, 

158-159 

Cavert, S. M., vii 
Central Committee on United 
Study of Foreign Mis¬ 
sions, 217 

Centralization, its effect on edu¬ 
cational programs, 12, 18-19 
Childhood, Characteristics of, 
71, 76-78 

Children, religious education 
of, 44 - 50 , 71-88 

Christian Citizenship Training 
Program. (See Y. M. C. 
A.) 

Christian Endeavor Society, 32, 
149, 207, 219 

Christianity, 117, 119, et pas¬ 
sim 

Church, the; its responsibility 
for education, 3, 25-29, 32, 
37 , 49 . 

its educational function, 38-59 
Church history; teaching of, 
105-106, 165-166 
Church membership, 106-107, 
124, 161-162 

Citizenship, education for, 12, 
14-17 

Colgate Theological Seminary, 
280 

College Boards of denomina¬ 
tions, 208, 221 
Colleges, Christian, 56 

religious education in, 231- 

249 

Columbia University, 10, 245, 

250 

Committee on Friendly Rela¬ 
tions with Foreign Stu¬ 
dents, 257 

Committee on Missionary 
Preparation, 223, 257 


305 


3 o6 INDEX 


Committee on Social and Re¬ 
ligious Survey, 177, 272 
Committee on the War and the 
Religious Outlook, 36-37, 
139 

Communicants’ class, 158-162 
Community life, educational 
bearing of, 47, 167 
Community program of reli¬ 
gious education, 199-205 
Constitutions of States, provi¬ 
sions on education, 15, 16 
Constitution of U. S., pro¬ 
visions on education, 13, 
22 

Conference of Church Work¬ 
ers in Universities, 223 
Conference of Theological 
Seminaries, 210, 223, 284 
Congregational Foundation for 
Education, 235 
Conversion, 46 

Cooperation of Churches 
needed, 24-25, 135-137, 200- 
201, 204, 264-266, 285, 294- 
295 

Coordination of programs of 
religious education, 32, 35, 
37 , 152 - 155 , 162, 163, 175, 
194-195, 196-228, 294-295 
Cornell University, 260 
Council of Church Boards of 
Education, 34, 210, 221- 
222, 246, 247, 272 
Council of Women for Home 
Missions, 158, 217 
Council on Correlation of Pro¬ 
grams, 216, 218, 219, 220, 
221, 223, 224, 227-228 
Cubberley, E. P., quoted, 4, 9, 
10, 12, 14 

Curriculum, modern expansion 
of, 6 

modern theory of, 7, 23, 31, 
190-191 

college, 242-249 
theological, 281-283 

Daily Vacation Bible Schools, 
163, et passim 

Democracy, education in, 14-17, 

21, 113-117 

Denominational boards of edu¬ 
cation, 205-209, 211, 213 


Denominationalism, effect on 
religious education, 18, 24- 
25, 135-137 

Dewey, John, 7-8, 16, 23 
Directors of religious educa¬ 
tion, 34, 198, 204 
Disciples’ Colleges, 244-245, 
262-264 

Doctrine, place of, in educa¬ 
tion, 44, 51-53, 275-276 
Doing, learning by, 7-8, 77-78, 
IOO-IOI, 154, 159, 187-188, 
191-192 

Economic conditions as affect¬ 
ing religious education, 
111-113, 119-121, 139-141 
Educational function of church, 
38-59; see also Church 
Ellwood, C. A., quoted, 132 
Environment; see Social en¬ 
vironment 

Epworth League, 149, 207, 219 
Evangelism, relation of educa¬ 
tion to, 40-41 

Evanston, Ill., Week-Day 
Schools, 182 

Experimentation, need for, 193- 
194, 202 

Family, education through the, 
3 , 4 , 44 - 47 , 65-68, 164-165 
worship, 66 

Federal Council of the Church¬ 
es, 137, 138, 140, 141, 224, 
225 

Fellowship as the basis of re¬ 
ligious education, 42-43, 47- 
48, 51, 52, 142 

Foreign missions. (See also 
missionary education) 122, 
257, 278 

Forest Hills conference, 226- 
228 

Forums, 167 

Foundations for religious edu¬ 
cation at universities, 261- 
264, 270 

Garden City Conference of 
Educational Agencies, 225- 
226G 

Gary, Ind., Week-Day Schools, 
177 , 183 


INDEX 


307 


General War-Time Commission 
of the Churches, 137-138 
Girl Reserves; see Young Wo¬ 
men’s Christian Associa¬ 
tion 

Girl Scouts; see Scout organi¬ 
zations 

God, making Him real to chil¬ 
dren, 65-75, 79-8 i 
G raded lesson materials, 33, 49, 
147-148, 213 

Growth, 44, 50 - 53 , 63-64 

Harvard College, 10, 246, 250 
Higher education, 5, 44, 56-59 
Holy Spirit, 40, 51 
Home, educational function of, 
44-47, 65-68, 164-165 

Illinois, University of, 258, 
262 

Immigration, effect on religious 
education, 17-18 
Industrial conditions affecting 
religious education, m-113, 
114, 119-121, 128-131, 139- 
141 

Infancy, religious education in, 
64-71 

Instruction, its place in educa¬ 
tion, 48-49 . . 

Interchurch investigation of 
steel strike, 141 

Interdenominational agencies, 
209-223 

Interdenominational Young 
People’s Commission, 210, 

216, 218-219 . . . 

International life, Christianiz¬ 
ing, 116, 129, 131-132, 140- 

141 

International Sunday School 
Association, 34, 209, 211- 
212, 213, 214, 247 
International Sunday School 
Council of Religious Edu¬ 
cation, 34, 36, 2ii, 214 
International Sunday School 
Lesson Committee, 29-30, 
33, 209, 212-214, 216, 227 

James, William, referred to, 50, 
no, 275 


Jesus as teacher, 39-40, 85-86 
life of, as taught to children 
and youth, 69, 74-75, 96-97, 
104-105 

Johnson, F. E., 129 
Judd, C. H., quoted, 5 

Kansas Agricultural College, 
252 

Kansas, University of, 262 
Kelly, R. L., vii 
Kindergarten period, religious 
education in, 68-71 
Kinley, Pres., quoted, 251 

Leadership, training for, 44, 56- 
59 , 193-194 

Legislation, educational signifi¬ 
cance of, 130-131 
Library, public, 173 
Lobingier, J. L., quoted, 153 
Lyttleton, Edward, referred to, 
46 

Malden, Mass., Week-day 
School, 182 

McConnell, Francis J., quoted, 
137 

McGill, University, 266, 274 
Methodist Episcopal Church 
work in universities, 262- 
264 

Methodist Episcopal Church 
South, 247 

Michigan Agricultural College, 

259 

Michigan, University of, 253 
Middle Colonies, education in, 4 
Ministry, education for the, 
271-295 

Minnesota, University of, 255 
Mission boards of denomina¬ 
tions, 215, 216-217 
Missionary education, 32, 37, 71, 

155-159, 162, 166, 198-199, 

207-208, 248 

Missionary Education Move¬ 
ment, 156, 158, 168, 210, 
216-218 

Missions, educational concep¬ 
tion of, 43 
Moral education, 41 
Motion pictures, educational 
signficance of, I 34 _I 35 , l 74 


308 INDEX 


Nationality as affecting reli¬ 
gious education, 115-116 
Negro in America, 116 
New England, education in, 4- 
5, 9-10, 12-14, 17, 200 
Newspaper as former of public 
opinion, 55, 122, I 33 _I 36 
New Testament, educatmnal 
value of (See also Bible, 
Jesus, etc.), 104-107 
North Dakota, University of, 
262 

Ohio University, 259, 263 
Oklahoma, University of, 252 
Old Testament, educational 
value of, 73-74, 80-85, 93- 
96, 103-104 

Organization of religious edu¬ 
cation, 145-175, 196-228 

Parents, as religious teachers, 
45-48, 65-68, 164-165 
Pennsylvania State College, 252 
Pennsylvania, University of, 
260 

Playground, 173-174 
Practical work, emphasis on in 
theological seminaries, 290- 

293 

Preaching, educational func¬ 
tion of, 42, 145-146 
Presbyterian Board of Educa¬ 
tion, 209 

Press, daily, as molder of pub¬ 
lic opinion, 55, 122, 133-136 
Prohibition, educational signifi¬ 
cance of, 130 

Protestant attitude toward edu¬ 
cation, 9-11, 26-28, 33 
Protestant Episcopal Board of 
education, 209 

Public opinion, creation of, 44, 
53-55, 124-142 

Public Schools in America, 3- 
28, 174 - 175 , 178 - 179 , 188- 
189 

Race as affecting religious 
education, 115 

Religion, place of, in educa¬ 
tion, 8-28 

Religious education; defined, 
41-42 


Religious education, as duty of 
the Church, 28-37 
as distinguished from moral 
education, 41-42 
its functions, 44-58 
in college and university, 231- 
270 

in theological seminary, 281- 
292 

Religious Education Associa¬ 
tion, 33, 177, 210, 223-224, 
.243, 247 

Religious freedom; its effect on 
education policy, 12-14, 22, 

27 

Research as a duty of Church, 
44 , 56 , 138-142, 292 

Roman Catholic educational 
policy, 4, 17-18, 26-28 

Rural Church, problems of, 
278 


Schools of Religion at univer¬ 
sities, 264-267, 270 
Science, its effect on religious 
teaching, 12, 19-20, 109- 

iii, 118-119, 276-277 
Scout organizations, 32, 37, 168, 
172-173, 201, 202, 210, 220- 
221 

Sectarianism, 18, 24-25 
Secularization of education, 3- 
28 

Sharp, F. C., quoted, 41 
Shaver, E. L., vii, 177 
Social environment as a factor 
in education, 108-123, 124- 
.131, 277-278 

Social ideals of the Churches, 

. I41 

Social relations, the Church’s 
teaching about, 81-84, 101- 
102, 105-107, 166-167 
Social service, education in, 
159, 166-167 

South Carolina, University of, 
252 

South Dakota, interest in re¬ 
ligious education, 16 
Southern Colonies, education 
in, 4 

Specialization in theological 
education, 277, 286-287 


INDEX 


State, the responsibility of, for 
education, 3, 14-17, 21 
separation of church and, 57, 
233, 250 

State universities; see Univer¬ 
sity 

Story telling to children, 68-71, 
73 - 76 , 79-85 
Stout, J. E., quoted, 35 
Student Fellowship for Chris¬ 
tian Life Service, 258 
Student Volunteer Movement, 
155, 210, 222, 256, 257 
Summer institutes of religious 
education, 34 

Sunday-School as an agency of 
religious education, 29-37, 
49-50, 147-150, 152-153, 157 - 
158, 162, 163, 164, 167-169, 
178-179, 180, 198-199, 200- 
201 

Sunday - School Associations, 
201-202, 211 

Sunday-School Boards (de¬ 
nominational), 204-209, 211, 
213, 215 

Sunday-School Council of 
Evangelical Denominations, 
34, 209, 213-214, 247 

Tawney, R. H., quoted, 139-140 
Teacher training classes, 34, 
167-170, 204 

Teaching methods, 187-188, et 
passim 

Teaching process, 191-192, et 
passim 

Texas, University of, 262, 265 
Theological seminary, 58-59, 
271-295 

Toronto University, 266, 274 

Unified program, need for; see 
coordination 

Uniform Sunday-School les¬ 
sons, 29-33, 64, 147-148, 212 
Union Theological College at 
Chicago, 280 


309 

Union Theological Seminary, 

.274 

Unity, Christian, 24-25, 135-137 
Lnity in educational program; 

see Coordination 
University pastor, 258-260, 270 
University, religious education 
in, 56, 58, 221, 233, 250, 271 

Vacation Bible Schools, 163 
Van Hise, C. R., quoted, 265 
Vinson, Pres., quoted, 250 
Vocation, religious view of, 101 

Wayland foundations, 263 
Week-day religious education, 

.34, 163 174-175, 176-195 

Weigle, L. A., vn 
Wesley foundations, 262-264 
Westminster foundation, 263 
Winchester, B. S., vii 
Wisconsin, University of, 262 
Wood, I. F., quoted, 245 
World Alliance for Interna¬ 
tional Friendship, 140 
World’s Sunday School Asso¬ 
ciation, 209, 214-215 
Worship, educational signifi¬ 
cance of, 42, 145 
in the family, 66 

Yale University, 10, 232, 250 
Young Men’s Christian Asso¬ 
ciation, 37, 57, 170-172, 201, 
202, 216, 219-220, 222, 255- 
256, 270 

Young Women’s Christian As¬ 
sociation, 37, 57, 170-172, 
201, 202, 216, 219-220, 222, 
255-256, 270 

Young people’s societies, 32, 37, 
149 - 155 , 157 - 158 , 162, 198- 
199, 201, 207, 218-219 
Youth, characteristics of, 89- 
90, 99-100 

religious education of, 44-50, 
89-107 










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